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THE 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



AN OUTLINE 



GREAT RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 



BYy 

DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D.D. 



%< 




PHILADELPT 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 






COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



All Rights Reserved. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
StereotyPers and ElecirotyPers , Philada, 



\y 



PREFACE. 



A MAN who rejects all other religions and accepts 
Christianity ought to be able to give a reason for it 
(i Pet. 3:15). To this end, obviously, he should have 
at the least a general acquaintance with the systems of 
religion which have, at one time or other, claimed the 
world's mind and conscience. It is the purpose of this 
book to present an outline of the great systems meas- 
urably clear, concise and accurate — such as shall enable 
the reader to characterize each at sight and defend his 
faith against them all. For, as there is only one true 
God, there can be only one true religion. Christianity 
claims to be that one. It may verify that claim, on the 
one hand, by a setting forth of its own merits, and, on 
the other, by a comparison with other and rival faiths. 
In this comparison our religion, if true, has everything 
to gain and nothing to lose. We therefore rejoice in 
the fact that of late the science of Comparative Relig- 
ion has rapidly pushed itself to the front. 

The essays in this book were originally prepared 
in brief for a Bible-class of young men. They were 
afterward revised and extended for a university lecture 
course, and once more for an association of pastors in a 
summer assembly. It is at the request of some of the 
foregoing auditors that the essays have now been ar- 



4 PREFACE, 

ranged for publication. It is the writer's hope that the 
book may prove interesting and profitable — not, perhaps, 
to those who are already more or less familiar with the 
science, so much as to the many common folk, who, 
cumbered with much serving in secular affairs, yet feel- 
ing the need of information on a subject which claims 
ever more and more of public thought, must have their 
reading in simple terms, clear outline and compact 
form. 

The following conclusions will probably occur to the 
reader: (i) There is a measure of good in each of the 
great religions ; (2) It is not true that " one religion 
is as good as another ;" (3) The Christian religion alone 
is altogether good; (4) The false systems cannot be 
regarded as progressive steps toward the true; (5) The 
true religion derives little or nothing from the false : 
" It gives a light to every age ; it gives, but borrows 
none ;" (6) The false philosophies which are from time 
to time advanced against the Christian religion are 
nearly or quite all borrowed from the erroneous sys- 
tems of the past ; (7) Christianity is the absolute re- 
ligion ; that is, it is wholly free from error and contains 
all good ; (8) It alone reveals the true God ; (9) It alone 
presents the ideal man; (10) It alone suggests a plan 
for the reconciliation of guilty man and offended God ; 
(11) It is the only moral system ; (12) It is fair, there- 
fore, to regard it as final ; (13) It is destined to be the 
universal religion. Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
doth his successive journeys run. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. FETICHISM 7 

II. THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT ...... 29 

III. ZOROASTRIANISM 59 

IV. BRAHMANISM 85 

V. BUDDHISM ■ 119 

VI. THE RELIGION OF GREECE 163 

VII. THE RELIGION OF THE NORSEMEN 197 

VIII. CONFUCIANISM 231 

IX. ISLAM 263 

X. THE TRUE RELIGION 305 

5 



I. 



FETICHISM. 



The Fetich is any material thing, living or dead, not divine, 
to which reverence is paid on account of a supernatural influence 
proceeding from it. 

Central Thought: A man is not the controller of his own 
affairs. 

(i) His master is fetich, the fortune-giver. 

(2) He may have many fetiches of divers kinds. 

(3) Fetichism is [a] not Polytheism, 

(b) nor Henotheism, 
(^) nor Pantheism. 

(4) It is, however, a system, having both a creed and a 

cultus. 

(5) It is better than any form of materialism, because it holds 

to the reality of supersensible things. 

(6) Providence vs. the modern fetich. 

" What shall I do to be saved f No answer. 



THE 



Religions of the World. 



I. FETICHISM. 

The religion of Adam was the true one. He wor- 
shiped God in spirit and in truth. He had his theology- 
direct from the divine lips. He *^ heard the voice of 
the Lord God walking in the garden." There was no 
such thing as spiritual ignorance or unbelief in those 
days. But Adam sinned and then fled shamefaced from 
the garden of delights. Night closed in around him — an 
Egyptian night, a darkness that could be felt. He was 
without God and without hope in the world. But he 
was not without memory. Amid the ruins of his 
former greatness walked the dim figure of his Creator. 
The prodigal could not forget his home and his Father, 
could not wholly forget that he was made after the 
divine image. A guilty wanderer, his soul cried out 
for God. In the darkness he groped after him. Oh, 
blessed reminiscence ! The Moslem felt it when he 
wrote — 

" As thy beloved*s eyes are mirrored in thine eyes, 
God's Spirit, painted so, within thy spirit lies." 

9 



lO THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

And also when he wrote — 

*' God and the soul are two birds free, 
And dwell together in one tree. 
This eateth various flavored fruits 
Of sense's thoughts and world's pursuits; 
Thai tasteth not nor great nor small, 
But silently beholdeth all." 

In this deep night we come upon Fetichism^ the 
rehgion of the abject masses of men, such as the 
Eskimos, the Australian bushmen, the jungle-dwellers 
of Africa. It is the lowest grade of religion. Comte, 
in his Positive Philosophy, makes it the primordial faith, 
or the initial stage in the logical evolution of religion.^ 
We prefer to regard it as the farthest point — the point 
of arrest, as it were — in the retrogression of the soul 
from God.^ 

^ " Fetichism is not only the most ancient, but it is also the most 
universal, form of religion. It furnishes incontrovertible proof that the 
lack of correct knowledge was the true and only cause of polytheism, 
and that for the uncultured savage everything is God or may be God." 
— Meiner's History of Religion. 

2 Altogether, the theoiy to which the facts appear on the whole to 
point is the existence of a primitive religion communicated to man 
from without, whereof monotheism and expiatory sacrifice were parts, 
and the gradual clouding over of this primitive revelation everywhere, 
unless it were among the Hebrews. Even among them a worship of 
teraphim crept in (Gen. 31 : 19-35), together with other corruptions 
(Josh. 24 : 14) ; and the terrors of Sinai were needed to clear away 
polytheistic accretions. Elsewhere degeneration had free play,. " a dark 
cloud stole over man's original consciousness of the divinity, and in 
consequence of his own guilt an estrangement of the creature from the 
one living God took place : man, as under the overpowering sway of 
sense and sensual lust, proportionally weakened, therefore, in his moral 
freedom, was unable any longer to conceive of the divinity as a pure, 



FETICH ISM. II 

Max Miiller says : '' Fetichism, so far from being, as 
we are told by almost every writer on the history of 
religion, a primitive form of faith, is, on the contrary, 
so far as facts enable us to judge, a decided corruption 
of an earlier and simpler religion. If we want to find 
the true springs of religious ideas, we must mount 
higher. Stocks and stones were not the first to reveal 
the Infinite before the wondering eyes of men." The 
true order is, ** In the beginning, God.'' 

Definition. — The word fetich is from the Portuguese 
fetisso, a charm.^ A fetich is defined by Waitz as ** an 
object of religious veneration, wherein the material 
thing and the spirit within it are regarded as one;" 
by Schultze, as " any object whatsoever viewed anthro- 
popathically or as endowed with human characteristics;" 
by Aug. Comte, as " a body animated in the same man- 
ner as the human body, and, like that, governed by a 
will;" by Peterson, as "a vehicle through which a 

spiritual, supernatural, and infinite Being distinct from the world and 
exalted above it." — RAWLmsoN^S Andenf J^eltgzons, pp. 175, 176. 

1 The first writer to employ the word fetich was De Brosses in his 
work Du culte des dieux Fetiches , which appeared in 1 760, anony- 
mously and without the name of the place of publication. As to the 
origin of the word, he mentions " . . . . certain deities whom Europeans 
call fetiches, a word formed by our traders in Senegal out of the Portu- 
guese term fetisso — /. e. enchanted, divine, oracular." 

It is from the Latin root fatum, fanum, fari. 

Winterbottom, in his Accozmt of the Native Aficans in the Neigh- 
hood of Sierre Leone ^ derives the word from the Portuguese faticeira, 
witch, ov faticaria, witchcraft. The negroes borrowed not only this, but 
also another vfoxd^gree-gree, from the Portuguese. According to Bastian, 
the universal name in West Africa for a fetich is enquizi. Another 
name is mokisso, or juju, also wong ; among several American tribes, 
manitu. — Fetichisniy Fritz Schultze, Ph.D., p. 24. 



12 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

supernatural power makes itself felt;" by Tyler, as "a 
spirit embodied in or attached to, or conveying influence 
through, certain material objects." 

All these definitions seem too broad. A fetich is any 
viatcrial tilings living or dead, which, while not regarded 
as diviyie, is revere7iced on account of a supposed super- 
7iatural ijiflnence proceeding from it} 

Central Thought, — The savage has a clear perception 
of the fact that he is not his own master ; he is con- 
trolled by a power or powers not himself. The most 
important business of his life is to discover those forces 
that hold him in their mysterious grasp. 

(i.) He finds presently, as he supposes, that his good 
or ill fortune is associated with some material thing, as 
a stone or a crooked stick ; this henceforth becomes his 
fetich or potent charm. He invokes its kind offices or 
placates its wrath, believing that his luck is made or 
marred by it. 

He may have more fetiches than one ; the number, 
indeed, may be indefinitely increased by the addition 
of anything whatever that in any way affects his for- 
tune. He may believe in the mysterious animation 
of all sensible things. The world is full of potent life.^ 
He fears to tread upon a plant or hurt a noisome rep- 

^ Webster's definition of fetich is as follows : " A material thing, 
living or dead, which is made the object of brutish and superstitious 
worship, as among certain African tribes." The objection to this defini- 
tion is that it confuses the respective ideas of fetich and idol. 

* ** The negro carries the belief in an animated nature to its uttermost 
limits, but as his mind is too rude to conceive of one universal animated 
nature, his imagination leads him to regard every trifling object around 
him as endowed with life." — Waitz, Anthropology of Savage Tribes ; 
SCHULTZE, p. 3. 



FETICHISM. 13 

tile, lest it avenge itself upon him. An Indian salutes 
a snake by the wayside, '^ Hail, friend ! take this gift 
of tobacco-dust; it will comfort you on your long 
journey." He may crush the reptile, but not until 
he has first placated it. 

(2.) He may have Many Fetiches, — The kinds of fetich 
are innumerable. Trees, rivers and mountains are in- 
vested with the mysterious power.^ The Australians 
worship the rock-crystal.^ The aborigines of North 

^ Jacob Grimm gives a very full account of the worship paid to water 
in the spring, the brook, the river and the sea, and describes the relig- 
ious observances of the people as they " offered their prayers, lighted 
lamps or made their sacrifices on the banks of the stream or on the 
margin of the spring;'' and these usages he traces from the remotest 
antiquity down into the Christian era. 

"The pure, flowing, bubbling evanescent water; the flaming, glow- 
ing, dying fire ; the air, perceptible, not to the eye, but to the ear and 
to the touch ; the earth, which maintains all things and to which they 
all revert, — these have ever been regarded by man as sacred and wor- 
shipful, and through them he has been wont to bestow a solemn conse- 
cration upon the customs, the pursuits and the events of his life. Their 
action upon the entire universe being steady and constant, the untutored 
mind pays them worship for their own sake, without any reference to a 
deity residing in them." — Schultze, p. 66. 

2 The Ephesians worshiped a block of black stone having a remote 
resemblance to a human figure, which they called Diana. It was said 
to have fallen down from heaven, the fact being, probably, that it was 
a meteoric stone. 

Keary says in his Outlines of Primitive Belief p. %2> * " The great 
typical instance is that of the Artemisium at Ephesus. Some remains 
of this wonder of the world have in quite recent days been recovered 
and brought to this country, and we may judge from them (if we were 
in doubt before) that in outward decorative art it was inferior to no 
production of its own age. 

" In the holy of holies still stood the time-honored image of the 
Ephesian Artemis, that hideous figure, only part human, part bestial or 
worse, and part still a block. This had been the central object of all 



14 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

America attached a peculiar virtue to the wampum- 
belt. There are negroes in the interior of Africa who 
know no god greater than a cord which they wear 
knotted about the calves of their legs. (The Jesuit 
missionaries are said to have substituted for this a 
rope of twisted palm-leaf which had been blessed on 
Palm Sunday.) 

A star/ a cloud,^ the 'Mights of St. Elmo/'^ an 

from earliest to latest days. For the sake of this the three temples had 
risen, one upon the site of the other. A real Greek Artemis might 
adorn the sculptures of the walls, might be allowed presence as an 
ornament merely, but the popular worship was paid to the deformed 
figure within." 

^ *' The vices which degrade the moral character of the Komans are 
mixed with a puerile superstition that disgraces their understanding. 
They listen with confidence to the predictions of haruspices, who pre- 
tend to read, in the entrails of victims, the signs of future greatness and 
prosperity ; and there are many who do not presume either to bathe or 
to dine or to appear in public till they have diligently consulted, ac- 
cording to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mercury and the 
aspect of the moon." — Gibbon's Rome, chap. 31. 

On the 1 2th of December, 1680, John Evelyn writes: "This even- 
ing, looking out of my chamber window toward the west, I saw a meteor 
of an obscure bright color, very much in shape like the blade of a 
sword, the rest of the sky being very serene and clear. What this 
may portend God only knows. But such another phenomenon I remem- 
ber to have seen in 1640, about the trial of the great earl of Strafford 
preceding our bloody revolution." — Yj^igwy'^ England, vol. iv. chap. 22. 

2 All men had a touch of superstition. Evelyn looks with wonder 
upon " a shining cloud in the air in shape resembling a sword." After 
the battle of Edgehill, " in the very place where the battle was stricken, 
have since and doth appear strange and portentous apparitions of two 
jarring and contrary armies." So records a tract in which the appari- 
tions and prodigious noises of war and battles are certified by a justice 
of the peace, a preacher and other persons of quality. — Knight's Eng- 
land, chap. 3. 

3 " Toward the latter part of October they had in the night a gust of 



FETICHISM. 15 

elephant's tooth, a lion's tail, a bunch of hair from a 
white man's beard, a splinter of a tree struck by light- 
ning, a curious stone, a heap of mud, birds and beasts 
of every kind,^ dwarfs and albinos — in short, anything 
material in heaven above or earth beneath — may come 
to be regarded as a fetich. 

This is not Polytheism, — Observe that this invest- 
heavy rain, accompanied by the severe thunder and lightning of the 
tropics. It lasted for four hours, and they considered themselves in 
much peril until they beheld several of those lambent flames playing 
about the tops of the masts and gliding along the rigging which have 
always been objects of superstitious fancies among sailors. Fernando 
Columbus makes remarks on them strongly characteristic of the age in 
which he lived : * On the same Saturday, in the night, was seen St. 
Elmo, with seven lighted tapers at the topmast ; there was much rain 
and great thunder; I mean to say that those lights were seen which 
mariners affirm to be the body of St. Elmo, on beholding which they 
chant litanies and orisons, holding it for certain that in the tempest in 
which he appears no one is in danger.' " — Irving's Columbus ^ book vi. 
chap. I. 

^ In the East India islands, as in Africa also, the shark is a mighty 
fetich along the sea-coast. Eels are worshiped in Cusaie and in the 
Marian Isles. In the Carolines the god Mani is represented as a fish. 
" At Eap there are kept in a pond of fresh water two fishes of ex- 
treme age, but yet only a span in length, which always stand in a right 
line, head to head, without moving. If any man touch them and they 
are made to stand at right angles with each other, an earthquake is the 
result." 

The reverence paid by American Indians to the rattlesnake was 
the means of saving the life of the Count von Zinzendorf (1742): 
** The Cayugas, with whom he was staying, were about to put him to 
death, supposing that his presence was productive of ill-luck to them. 
The count was seated one night on a bundle of sticks, writing by the 
light of a small fire. Unknown to him, a rattlesnake lay alongside 
him. When the Indians who were to take his life approached and 
observed the snake, they withdrew, firmly convinced that the stranger 
was of divine origin." — Schultze. 



l6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

iture of all things with a living power is not Poly- 
theism. The fetich is not an idol ; that is, a symbol 
or image of the true God. No doubt, as we shall 
presently see, there are savages who believe in the 
Invisible One, but their fetiches, as such, are in no 
wise associated with him. The moment an object 
stands for God it ceases to be a fetich in any proper 
sense, and becomes an idol. Schultze says, referring 
to animal veneration, " They worship the animal itself 
m propria naiiird^ and without any reference to any 
divinity which it may represent." ^ 

Nor is it Henotheism. — Observe, again, that this is 
not what Max Miiller calls *' Henotheism ;" that is, 
the worship of anything as a god in and of itself, with- 
out respect to the Supreme One. The fetich, we repeat, 
is not in any wise whatsoever regarded or treated as 
a god. 

Nor Pantheism. — Once more observe : it is not Pan- 
theism. It does indeed fill the earth with mysteri- 
ous powers, but there is no blending or expanding 
of all into one. The savage cannot generalize in that 
way. He merely personifies, like a child playing with 
a doll.^ His fetich is a living thing, with an influence 

^ " It is not as if the savage in his anthropopathic apprehension rep- 
resented to himself a self-existent superior power, a self-existenc soul 
which merely assumed for a time the external shape of the fetich No: 
the stone remains a stone, the river a river." — Schultze, p. 21. 

^ " The little girl who in perfect seriousness regards her doll as a play- 
mate, who strips and clothes it, feeds and chastises it, puts it to bed and 
hushes it to sleep, calls it by a personal name, etc., never imagines that 
all her care is expended on a lifeless thing ; she does not make any such 
reflections as these : ' This is all merely an illusion that I indulge on 
purpose — a play that I engage in, but with the distinct understanding 



FETICHISM. 17 

all its own to make or mar his fortune ; it is, in other 
words, a mascot taking the place of a god. It is not 
divine ; it can scarcely be called supernatural. It is a 
material object supposed to be endowed with super- 
natural gifts. Its power is an unknown quantity which 
experience alone can estimate. 

A Kaffir broke a piece off the anchor of a stranded 
vessel and soon after died. The Kaffirs thenceforth 
regarded that anchor as possessed of the mysterious 
influence, and saluted it as they passed by with a view 
to propitiating it. 

If a fetich fails to stand the test of experience, it is 
scolded, flogged, imprisoned, dragged in the mire or 
cast into the sea.^ It is not uncommon, after an epi- 
demic, for an entire tribe to make a bonfire of their 
fetiches. These are obviously, therefore, not regarded 
as divine in any important sense, although they may 
be said to be esteemed by the savages as tentative 
powers to be cast aside when their insufficiency is 
shown, as, e.g.^ their not being able to ward off a plague. 
When Xerxes ordered three hundred lashes to be ad- 
ministered to the Hellespont because it had broken up 
his bridge of boats, he manifestly had no flattering 

that it is only play.' She has no thought that the doll is a lifeless 
thing; for her it is possessed of a human life." — Schultze, p. 21. 

1 " In front of the American's house (in Shemba-Shemba, West 
Africa) there was a crowd of people assembled, in the midst of whom 
a fetich-priest was running up and down with loud cries, jerking hither 
and thither a wooden puppet decked with tatters of every color, and 
beating it with a switch on the face and shoulders. I learned that a 
knife had been stolen from one of the negroes, and he had applied for 
its recovery to this priest, who was the owner of a fetich in high repute 
as a detective of thieves." — Schultze, p. 27. 



1 8 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

opinion of its power ; he did not regard the Hellespont 
as either a god or the symbol of a god ; it was a fetich 
overpowered by the winds, and therefore to be treated 
with angry contempt. 

The fetich is understood to be more or less familiar 
with the future. It is consulted on the chase and in 
time of war. In Lapland a ring is used for divination 
upon the head of a magical drum. The North Ameri- 
can Indians foretell coming events by taking the direc- 
tion of smoke from the wigwam of the great medicine- 
man. 

Fortune-telling is a rudimental kind of Fetichism. 
The prospector who in these days in our mining dis- 
tricts wanders over the hills with a hazel switch poised 
in his hand searching for ore is a fetichist. Emerson 
wrote, 

*• Things are in the saddle, 
And ride mankind." 

This is evidently true of such things as horseshoes, 
hazel twigs and crooked sixpences. 

The savage ascribes to his fetich the power of de- 
fending him from evil. He has one fetich against the 
thunder, another against lions, another against diseases, 
another to extract thorns from his feet. Potsherds are 
scattered around burying-places to keep off evil spirits, 
and the camp is surrounded with mussel-shells to cut 
the devil's feet. A beaver-skin or an earthen pot on a 
pole in the midst of the encampment is an effective 
** totem " to avert evil. Among certain tribes on the 
western coast of Africa it is the custom for a son to 
preserve the skull of his father as a great fetich. It is 



FETICHISM, 19 

kept in a secret place where no one but himself is ever 
allowed to see it. He sets food and offers sacrifices 
before it. This attention secures him victory over all 
his foes.^ 

Here we have the most abject form of spiritual bond- 
age. It is the harpy Superstition wielding a whip of 
scorpions. The infant at its birth is placed under the 
tutelage of a fetich. A vow of faithful service is made 
in its behalf by the fond parents and tattooed in hiero- 
glyphics upon the tender flesh. The fetich thus chosen 
is called the great one, and is thenceforth the control- 
ling genius of the life of this immortal being. He is 
accustomed from his earliest childhood to revere the 
terms of this parental covenant. He expects his fetich 
to preserve him from danger and misfortune, in return 
for which he renders an unquestioning and unfaltering 
service. Other fetiches he may have, but this is always 
the supreme one. An Indian lad upon the verge of 
manhood takes a new fetich. He retires to a lonely 

^ Rev. A. W. Marling, of the Gaboon mission, speaks as follows of a 
revolting form of w^orship prevailing among the Fang tribe of Western 
Africa : " It is called in their language beatee. It is practiced by the 
men only; the vromen are not allow^ed to know^ anything about it. 
When a man has been dead and buried for some time the skull is taken 
from the grave, given to his eldest son, vi^ho takes it to his own house 
and places it in some secret corner. Henceforth no one except him- 
self, not even his wife, is allowed to see it. The spirit of his father is 
now supposed to have a special care for the son. If the latter be set- 
ting out on a journey, he has a fowl or a goat killed and food prepared. 
This he himself takes and deposits in private before the skull. The 
spirit is supposed to partake of the refreshment and to be propitiated 
toward the son, and to grant him protection in his journey and success 
in his undertaking, whatever it may be." — Foreign Missionary, June, 
1885, pp. 21, 22. 



20 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

place in the forest and dreams his Hfe-dream, wherein 
his destiny is revealed to him. On awaking he tracks 
an animal to its lair and kills it, and its skin, worn 
thenceforth upon his person, is regarded as a magical 
protector. Should he lose it he receives an ignomin- 
ious title, " The man without medicine." The skin 
serves him as his Providence. It stands him in the 
place of a god. 

(3.) // is a System, — This rude form of religion — if 
religion it may be called — is found sometimes possess- 
ing the characteristics of a system. It has a creed and 
a cultus. It has an order of ministers^ called gangas, 
magians, feticeros or medicine-men, etc., whose duties 
are to reveal the future^ practice necromancy and jug- 
gling tricks, minister at the altar and guard the mys- 
teries from profane eyes. They usually speak a lan- 
guage of their own, a dialect quite unintelligible to 
lay folk. They have temples also. One of these 
in Africa is thus described by Bastian : " The sacred 
place was quadrangular, constructed of straw matting, 
the entire front being of wooden framework with three 
arched doorways. Each of the two side-doorways was 
surmounted by a pyramid, while over the middle one 
rose a cupola, and the doorposts were adorned with 
figures in blue and green. Within was the fetich, a 
simple mound of earth, on which stood three forked 
sticks painted red and white in alternate stripes." 

Such is Fetichism, the religion of the charm, the 
cabal, the talisman, the " mascot." 

(4.) // is Better than Materialisin. — There is this 
only to be said in its favor : it betrays an instinctive 



FETICHISM. 21 

faith in the unseen. May we venture with Schleier- 
macher to call this the '* God-consciousness "? No 
man created in the divine image ever yet sank so low 
in barbarism as to be a thorough materialist. The 
naked cannibal believes in the reality of invisible 
things. His Fetichism, if not worship, is a step taken 
through the darkness toward God.^ 
The Hindus have this proverb : 

" The wall said to the nail, * What have I done 
That through me thy sharp tooth thou thus dost run?' 
The nail replied, * Poor fool ! what do I know ? 
Ask him who beats my head with many a blow.' " 

I say, therefore, that though he does obeisance to 
nothing better than a coil of dried intestines hung on 
the ridge-pole of his tent, the fetich-worshiper is nearer 
heaven than the fool (Ps. 14 : i) whose university cul- 
ture has emboldened him to say, *' There is no God." 
The fetichist has something that serves him as a rule 
of faith and practice, though it be merely, as Bastian 
calls it, "a system of the universe in smallest twelve- 
mo."^ Better a philosophy of gorgons, hydras and 

^ " Primitive man has a belief in the great thing — the tree, river, 
mountain, or what not. This belief is an afifection of the mind, very 
different from the simple sense that the thing is physically broad and 
high. Along with the physical sensation goes a subtler inward feeling, 
a sense not easily measurable, as physical sensations are, but still dis- 
coverable. We know it to be there by the answer which the material 
sensation has called out of man's heart, and which makes itself audibly 
known in his worship." — Keary's Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 17. 

2 " The vow he has undertaken is for him the sum-total of religion. 
So long as things go pleasantly for him he is happy and contented under 
the guardianship of his mokisso ; he feels strong in the assurance of 



22 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

chimeras dire than what Carlyle calls a " religion of 
frog-spawn," a '' philosophy of dirt." The fetichist 
believes in an overruling spiritualism, in presences 
more or less powerful, here and there and everywhere. 
Moreover, he believes in his own helplessness. His 
destiny is in the grip of these unseen and unknown 
presences. He must somehow keep on the right side 
of them or disaster will overtake him. He has little 
or no conception of sin or of virtue, as such. His 
chief end is to please himself, and all his aspirations 
are briefly comprehended in good-htck} Give him suc- 
cess in the chase, victory in battle, rings and bracelets, 

divine approval ; ascribes to the divine complacency his days of sun- 
shine; indeed, his judgment is strictly controlled by his wishes and 
desires. But if, unintentionally or involuntarily, he breaks his vow, the 
whole course of providence in his regard is at once and irrevocably 
altered. Then misfortune overtakes him ; he is quickly overwhelmed 
with calamities, and his only escape lies through death and oblivion ; 
for him there is no hope, no path leading to reconciliation and deliver- 
ance. The luckless wretch need not, in Africa at least, go far in search 
of death. The fiends who surround him in the shape of fellow-men 
quickly trample him to death, and with the last breath of the fetich- 
worshiper expires a system of the universe in smallest twelvemo." — 
Bastian, Schultze, p. 39. 

^ " Certain Bushmen, being asked by a European what they meant by 
good and what by bad, could not give any reply, but they held fratricide 
to be perfectly harmless. 

" The Kamtchatdales hold that an act is sinful which is unlucky ; for 
instance, to visit hot springs; to brush snow oif the shoes out of doors; 
to seize a red-hot coal otherwise than with the fingers when you would 
light your pipe ; to bring home the first fox you have taken ; to tread 
in the tracks of a bear, etc. 

" The Orangoo negroes hold it sinful to spit on the earth, while the 
natives of Labrador regard nothing as sinful save only the murder of an 
innocent man." — Schultze, p. ii. 



FETICH ISM. 23 

and plenty of wives, and what more could a man want 
here below ?^ 

(5.) Providence vs. the Fetich. — We have been long 
enough in this miasmatic valley ; let us climb up the 
mountains and through the clear air of our Christian 
faith look away to the ineffable Throne. What in- 
finite stretches of crag and chasm lie between the fetich 
and God ! 

On the clear heights of belief there is no chance. 
We are in the domain of providence : 

" All is of God ! If he but raise his hand 

The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud, 
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land, 

Lo ! he looks back from the departing cloud." 

To believe thoroughly in Providence is to be a very 
child of God. But, alas ! there is something of fetich- 
worship in every one of us.^ We believe in charms 

^ " In all negro languages the word belly is one of great import. 
Politeness requires that one inquire if all is well with his neighbor's 
belly. The South Sea Islanders call thoughts words in the belly. The 
stomach of one who dies is kept as a relic, and the Kroo negroes hold 
that the stomach ascends into heaven after death." — Schultze, p. 12. 

2 « Why is it that sailors cling to port on a Friday and loose their 
ships and weigh anchor on Sunday ? Why did the ancients build a 
temple to Fortune, consult oracles and venerate white stones rather than 
black stones ? Why did our grandmothers dislike the assemblage of 
nine rooks, turn back when they met a dog crossing their paths and 
show an antipathy to black cats? Why does a Fijian, to propitiate his 
ugly wooden god, offer him a bakolo, the dead body of his brother ? 
Why was it improper to eat beans and the seeds of the lupine? What 
magic makes the third time never like the rest ? At the wicked little 
German towns where small grand-dukes improve their revenues by 
licensing gaming-tables you will find old gamblers begging the youngest 
in the company, often an English boy who has come to look about him, 



24 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and amulets, in magic numbers and unlucky days. 
Our grandmothers were afraid to walk over the sweep- 
ings of their rooms. There are those who cover up 
their looking-glasses in presence of the shrouded dead. 
Farmers are afraid to disturb the swallows that chatter 
under the eaves of their barns, lest so doing they blast 
the growing harvest. The sailor has a thousand super- 
stitious fancies. 

** God save thee, ancient mariner, 

From the fiends that plague thee thus ! 
Why look'st thou so?" — " With my cross-bow 
I shot the albatross I" 

In the van of Peter the Hermit's army of crusaders 
was carried a sacred goose, on the life or death of 
which was thought to depend the issue of the cam- 
paign for the conquest of the holy sepulchre.^ 

In witchcraft we find a stupendous relic of Fetichism, 
the fires of which are scarcely yet extinguished. The 
red string which a lad ties around his fingers to cure 
warts is a fetich.^ The Holy Grail was a fetich ; so are 

to take for them the first throw of the dice. Why so ? Why is a fresh 
hand more likely to throw the three sixes than an old one?" — The 
Gentle Life, 

^ " Above eighty thousand ranged themselves under the banner of 
Peter the Hermit, who walked at their head with a rope about his 
waist and sandals on his feet. Peter's lieutenant was Walter the Penny- 
less, and in the van of his troops were carried a sacred goose and a goat, 
which (monstrous to believe!) were said to be filled with the Holy 
Ghost. This immense and disorderly multitude began their march 
toward the East in the year 1095." — Tytler's History, book vi. ch 9. 

* " A pulled tooth is to be driven into a young tree and covered with 
the bark. If the tree be cut down the ache comes back. If you break 
a twio: off a willow and drive it into the aching tooth until the blood 



FETICH ISM. 25 

bones of the saints, splinters of the true cross and 
similar rehcs, as well as all charms, talismans, rosaries 
and images blessed by priests/ We are thus con- 
tinually tempted to push aside Providence and make 
way for strange influences.^ 

" And still from Him we turn away, 

And fill our hearts with worthless things ; 

The fires of avarice melt the clay, 
And forth the fetich springs ! 

Ambition's flame and passion's heat 
By wondrous alchemy transmute 
Earth's dross, to raise some gilded brute 

To fill Jehovah's seat." 

The brazen serpent, cherished for its sacred associa- 
tions, came to be regarded at length as a fetich, and was 

comes, and then restore the twig to its place, drawing the bark over it, 
the toothache goes away." — Schultze, p. 61. 

^ One of the most familiar fetiches of the Koman Catholic Church is 
the scapular. It is related that the Virgin Mary, appearing to St. Simon 
Stock, presented him with a " scapular," or brown woolen jacket, at 
the same time informing him that it would protect the wearer from all 
possible danger of the flames of hell. The scapular received the formal 
sanction of Pope Clement X. It was furthermore announced by Pope 
John XXII. in his bull * Sabbathine ' that any person dying with the 
scapular upon his person would remain in purgatory only until the 
Saturday following his death. The Carmelite monks were granted a 
monopoly of the trade in scapulars, and they reaped immense profits 
from it. 

2 " In 1608, John Smith was preserved by the Indians who had 
butchered his companions. He exhibited a pocket compass and showed 
how it always pointed to one quarter. He requested that a letter should 
be conveyed to Jamestown, and when it was known that he could so 
endue a piece of paper with intelligence as to speak to his distant com- 
panions, he was beheld with superstitious awe." — Knight's England, 
vol. iii. ch. 22, p. 344. 



26 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

destroyed ; '' * Nehushtan !' cried Hezekiah ; that is to say, 
Mt is nothing but brass.' " The bread of the sacra- 
mental feast when invested with supernatural virtues 
becomes a fetich ; so does the Bible when printer's ink 
and paper claim the reverence due to the spirit of the 
Word. It is much to be feared that prayer itself, when 
used as a mere herb or balsam for healing disease and 
in return for a stipulated fee, is a fetich and nothing 
else. The Jews made a great fetich of Mount Zion, 
and the Samaritans of Gerizim, and the discourse of 
Jesus was aimed at both when he said, " Believe me, 
the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this moun- 
tain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. . . . God 
is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship 
him in spirit and in truth." 

The man who believes in charms and talismans, in 
magic or divination or witchcraft, in sacred relics or 
images, or the consecrated wafer, is a spiritual kins- 
man of him who does obeisance to formless stocks 
and stones. 

" What shall I Do to be Saved T— The fetich-wor- 
shiper is a believer in immortality, but his sensual 
mind is so absorbed in the gratification of present 
needs that he thinks little or nothing of the everlast- 
ing future. To him salvation is a word in an unknown 
tongue. In his rude philosophy there is nothing to 
bridge the chasm between the sinful soul and the 
offended Lawgiver.^ The man who rejects Providence 

^"A draught oi fetich-water can discover in the heart the proofs 
whether of guilt or of innocence, and it is therefore but natural that it 
should have also power to banish moral ills. During the festival of the 



FETICH ISM, 27 

can have no Saviour, for our Christ is simply the best 
of providences, the Special One. 

Two practical thoughts by way of application : 
I. Let us honor Providence. We live beneath the 
glowing light of the Sun of Righteousness. We know 
that God liveth and ruleth over all. Let us take heed, 
therefore, and beware of investing anything whatsoever, 
or any person whomsoever, with wisdom or power that 
belongs to God alone. His is the eye that never sleeps 
beneath the wing of night. Good-fortune is his smile, 
and " our midnight is his smile withdrawn.'' 

IL The abject servitude and helplessness of the 
millions who are not only without God, but without 
symbols of him, appeal as with articulate voices to all 
that is humane within us. We pity the idolaters, such 
as worship graven images of Deity, but there are vast 
multitudes still lower down who are absolutely with- 
out so much as an image of God. Ours is the grave 
responsibility — shall we not rather say the glorious 
privilege ? — of sending the good news of life and im- 
mortality to those lying in darkness and the shadow 
of death. A great missionary once wrote: "Whoso- 
ever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved. How, then, shall they call on Him in whom 

first-fruits the men of the Creek tribe of American Indians used to 
take, after a prolonged fast, the war-medicine, being strong emetics and 
drastic agents, while the women bathed and washed themselves. All 
offences, with the exception of murder, were thus blotted out. It is 
beyond question that the idea of purification from sin attached to these 
ceremonies, but especially to the bath and the drinking of the black 
draught, as it was called, an infusion of dried cassine-leaves."— 

SCIIULTZE, p. 34. 



28 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

they have not beheved ? and how shall they believe in 
Him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall 
they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they 
preach, except they be sent ? as it is written, How 
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel 
of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things !" 

God help us to know our opportunity and to embrace 
it ! From the wretched abodes of superstition, dark- 
ened by the overhanging shadow of death, comes a 
cry for help. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear! 



II. 

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT 
EGYPT. 



I. The Sacred Books : 

Forty- five in number. 
" Book of the Dead." 
II. T/ieoloi^y : 
(i) God. 

Ammon-Ra and the Divine Dynasties. 
Zoolatry. 
(2) Immortahty. 
The ka. 
III. Morals : 
Maat. 

The Rehgion of Sadness. 
Central Thought : Life. 

" What shall I do to be saved?'' Observe the Maat, 



11. THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT 
EGYPT. 

The river Nile, so long hiding its source among 
the mountains in the interior of the Dark Continent, 
flows northward three thousand miles and empties 
through seven divergent mouths into the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. It is the great life-sustaining artery of 
Egypt. In September, at the rising of the dog-star, 
its waters begin to swell, covering the land with a 
gradual inundation, until as the nilometer marks ten, 
twelve or fourteen cubits the hearts of the people are 
gladdened with the sure hope of a plentiful harvest. 
For Egypt is merely a narrow strip of black loam 
lying for hundreds of miles on either side of the river. 

" The pulse of Egypt beats but once a year." 

A difference of six cubits in the annual overflow de- 
termines whether or not the lean kine of famine shall 
devour the fat. If the nilometer mark twelve cubits, 
after the subsidence of the waters in November the 
valley begins to assume the appearance of a garden, 
and is soon '* covered with verdant crops, enameled 
with flowers and interspersed with groves of luxuriant 
palms." 

The Nile is the most historical of rivers. On its 
banks Joseph built his granaries and watched the 

31 



32 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

slow-plying rafts that floated downward laden with 
corn. In the rushes along its edge was hidden away 
the child who, rescued by a king's daughter, was pres- 
ently to turn these waters into blood at the behest of 
an offended God. On its still surface rocked the gilded 
barge of Cleopatra with its silken sails, and here, cen- 
turies afterward. Napoleon dreamed his vain dreams 
of universal empire. 

A Land of Ruins, — But the history-making days of 
Egypt are past. It is now a land of solitude and decay. 
Thebes, Karnak, Dendara, Memphis — what visions of 
golden splendor their names suggest ! To-day they 
are only sand-swept ruins. Yet the world has no such 
ruins elsewhere — temples carved out of the solid rock, 
reached by long avenues of sphinxes ; immense col- 
umns and porticos ; obelisks towering high in the air 
and covered with hieroglyphics depicting the mighty 
deeds of sovereigns who died before Abraham ! What 
think you of an obelisk weighing three hundred tons ? 
or of a monolithic temple weighing not less than five 
thousand tons, which must have been transported from 
the mountain-quarries down the entire length of the 
Nile to its delta? 

Egypt has been rightly named " the wonder-land.'* 
Her pyramids, standing near the ancient site of Mem- 
phis, are the oldest as well as the most stupendous of 
earth's monuments. Imagine, if you can, what scenes 
have transpired within their shadow. When the patri- 
arch Jacob went down to visit Thebes he must have 
looked upon these very pyramids with wondering eyes, 
for they were then already two thousand years old. 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 33 

There they stand, tombs of history, with their blank, 
immobile faces looking out upon the endless wastes 
of Sahara, as if to say : " Behold, O eyes of the living, 
the magnificence of past days! Boast not of your 
achievements, for the greatest of all is dead and buried 
greatness!"^ In Dr. Robinson's story of the pyramids 
he confesses to a momentary disappointment when the 
Arab guides pointed them out in the distance : *^ But as 
we approached them, and looked upward along their 
mountain-sides to the summit, their huge masses 
seemed to swell into immensity and the idea of their 
vastness was absolutely overpowering. Vain pride 
of human pomp and power ! The monuments re- 
main unto this day the wonder of all time, but their 
builders, their history and their very names have been 
swept away in the dark tide of oblivion." 

The Rosetta Stone and its Revelations, — The multi- 
tudinous ruins of Egypt are covered over with inscrip- 
tions, detailing the rise and fall of dynasties and the 
mighty deeds of the Pharaohs. But anything like an 
exact interpretation of these was quite impossible until 
the beginning of the present century. In 1799, while 
a French officer, Charapollion, was erecting works at a 
place called Rosetta, on the Nile, a slab of black basalt 
was dug up whereon was inscribed in parallel columns 
of Greek and hieroglyphics a decree conferring divine 
honors on Ptolemy V., who reigned in the second cen- 
tury B. c. The Greek, which was easy of translation, 
afforded a means of interpreting the hieroglyphics. 
Thus the key was found by which the treasure-house 

^ Renouf, Religion of Ancient Egypt, 
3 



34 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

of ancient Egypt, locked for thousands of years, has 
at length been opened to the light. Its pillars and 
obelisks no longer speak to us in an unknown tongue. 
And what are their revelations ? As to the civilization 
of Egypt, they portray her advancing torch in hand 
when as yet the nations universally were sitting in 
darkness and the shadow of death. We are coming 
to think of Egypt as the cradle of civilization. The 
more we study her monuments, the less can we glorify 
the so-called progressive spirit of modern times. Here 
is " the fountain from which the Assyrian, the Greek 
and the Hebrew drank." " It is certain,'' says Renouf, 
" that at least three thousand years before Christ there 
was in Egypt a powerful and elaborately organized 
monarchy, enjoying a material civilization in many 
respects not inferior to that of Europe in the last 
century.'' It was not without reason that the Egyp- 
tian priests were wont to say sneeringly to the philos- 
ophers of Athens, " You Greeks are mere children ; 
you know nothing of the past." The beginnings of 
the culture and enlightenment of Egypt, stretching 
back beyond all annals and traditions, are lost like the 
sources of her great river — in darkness. Here " was 
nursed and educated that intellect which, receiving a 
divine wisdom from on high, gave birth to the social 
and national institutions which have unfolded out of 
their bosom the Christian Church." It is evident from 
her monuments that Egypt in the very dawn of her his- 
toric era was far advanced in science, familiar with very 
many conveniences which we assign to the invent- 
ive genius of modern days, and was not to be despised 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 35 

in respect to her literature. Her artisans were ac- 
quainted with hydrauHc engineering. Rameses II. 
opened a watercourse between Bubastes and the Red 
Sea at an expense of one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand lives and treasure incalculable, which gave to the 
French engineer Lesseps the suggestion of the Suez 
Canal. As to her advancement in art, we may take 
the testimony of Rawlinson, who says, among other 
eulogistic words : ^* The life-sized statue of Phra- 
Kephren, discovered in the temple of the Great Pyra- 
mid, in its majestic simplicity of character will bear 
comparison with that of Watt by Chantrey in West- 
minster Abbey." 

It is fortunate for the gratification of our curiosity 
that the Egyptians were fond of writing. They cov- 
ered the walls of their homes, tombs and temples with 
inscriptions which the dry air and drifting sands to- 
gether have kept legible to this day. In the marshy 
grounds along the borders of the Nile grew the pap- 
yrus (whence our word paper), out of which was man- 
ufactured a cheap parchment, which, with the reed 
stylus, made writing a common art. Rolls of papyrus 
are unwound among the linen bands of mummies 
whereon the red and black characters are as plain 
as when, stained with tears, they were put out of sight 
long centuries ago with the beloved dead. From these 
we discover that the literature of ancient Egypt em- 
braced, in a wonderful degree, the arts, sciences and 
philosophies of later ages. It is difficult to realize 
that the golden period of Egyptian letters was in the 
reign of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, fifteen centuries 



36 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

B. c. His palace was in hundred-gated Thebes, where 
men of genius ever found Hberal patronage. There 
was a great hbrary there over whose door was wTitten 
" Dispensary of the Soul.'' The court-librarian, or 
master of the scrolls, was Kagabu the elegant, illus- 
trious as a novelist and poet.^ There is extant an 
epic poem by Pentaour, who may have been the laur- 
eate of that golden age, which celebrates the prowess 
of Rameses the Great in war. We have also a novel 
called the Story of Two Brothers^ which is probably the 
oldest work of fiction in the world, having been writ- 
ten by the minstrel Enna ** for the amusement of the 
crown-prince, who afterward perished with his host in 
the Red Sea." There are many other complete tales 
and poem.s, as well as historical documents, biogra- 
phies and annals, copied from the hieroglyphics on 
temple walls or from papyrus preserved in mummy 
crypts. 

How strange to read these productions — the "Ro- 
mance of Setna," the " Garden of Flowers," the " Tale 
of the Doomed Prince " — knowing as we do that they 
represent the tears and laughter of forty centuries ago ! 
Here are some verses taken from a monumental tab- 
let found among the ruins of Thebes, and purporting 
to have been addressed by the god Amen or Ammon 
to King Thotmes HI. : 

" I am come ! To thee have I given to strike down Syrian princes; 
Under thy feet they lie throughout the breadth of their country. 
Like to the Lord of light I made them see thy glory, 
Blinding their eyes with light, the earthly image of Amen. 

1 QuACKENBOS's Oriental Literature. 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 37 

" I am come ! To thee have I given to strike down Asian people ; 
Captive now thou hast led the proud Assyrian chieftains. 
Decked in royal robes, I made them see thy glory, 
All in glittering arms and fighting aloft in thy war-car. 

" I am come ! To thee have I given to strike down Libyan archers; 
All the isles of the Greeks submit to the force of thy spirit. 
Like a lion in prey I made them see thy glory, 
Couched by the dead he has slain down in the rocky valley. 

" I am come ! To thee have 1 given to strike down the ends of the 
ocean ; 
In the grasp of thy hand is the circling zone of waters. 
Like the soaring eagle I made them see thy glory, 
Whose far-seeing eye there is none can hope to escape from." ^ 

In this, a fair illustration of inscriptions found in the 
sepulchres of kings, we detect a true poetic stateli- 
ness. It will be observed that nearly all the literature 
of Egypt is religious in its tone. The people are 
referred to by Herodotus as " surpassing all others 
in the reverence they paid the gods.'' So Professor 
Maury remarks : " Everything among them took the 
stamp of religion. Their writing was so full of sacred 
symbols that it could scarcely be put to any purely 
secular use.'' 

I. The Sacred Books. — The sacred or hermetic books 
of Egypt, as we are informed by Clement of Alexan- 
dria, were forty-five in number. Though denominated 
sacred, they were in great part taken up with disquisi- 
tions on philosophy and the sciences. One only of 
these books is still extant. It is a collection of prayers 
and magic rites used in the burial service, its title being 
" Book of the Dead," literally, " Book of the peri em 

^ QuACKENBOS, Of'iental Literature. 



38 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

hru ;*' that is, of the " coming forth by day.'' It is a 
mythological work in which the continuous theme is 
the conflict between darkness and Hght. This was 
probably the most venerated of the sacred books, 
for which reason it was often transcribed on papyrus 
to be wrapped about the embalmed bodies of illus- 
trious or holy men. Here is an extract from the book, 
given simply by way of illustration. (The soul is sup- 
posed to have journeyed through the dark valley which 
intervenes between time and eternity, fighting its way 
through hosts of opposing dragons and monsters of 
evil. It then appears for trial in the dreaded judg- 
ment-hall of Osiris, where the heart is placed in an 
immense balance and weighed against the feather of 
truth. It is at the moment of its appearance in the 
judgment-hall that the soul speaks) : " O ye lords of 
truth, let me utter truth. I have privily done evil 
against no man. I have not been idle, given to in- 
toxication nor unchaste. I have not exacted of the 
laborer more than his daily task. I have caused none 
to hunger, made none to weep. I have murdered none, 
defrauded none. I have not eaten the sacred bread of 
the temple. I have not cheated in weights or measures. 
I have not slandered. I have not netted the sacred 
birds. I have offered to the gods the sacrifices that 
were their due. I have given food to the hungry, 
drink to the thirsty and clothes to the naked. I am 
pure ! I am pure !" (Happy would we be if at the 
judgment-bar, with honest hearts, we might present 
that plea, '* I am pure !" But, alas ! in the light of 
our gospel who can presume?) 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 39 

There are fragments of another sacred book called 
Shait en Sensen^ or " Breaths of Life," which consisted 
of thoughts on immortality. Its precepts were wrap- 
ped around the mummies of priests. Here is a quo- 
tation : 

** Hail to thee, departed one ! 
Thine individuality is for ever; 
Thy body is indestructible ; 
Thy mummy doth germinate. 

Thou art not exiled from heaven, neither from earth ; 
Thou dost breathe for ever. 
Thy flesh is upon thee 
As on thine earthly form. 
Thou dost eat and drink with thy lips ; 
Thou receivest bread with the souls of the gods; 
Thy soul doth breathe for ever and ever." 

Let us inquire now as to the distinguishing marks of 
the religion of Egypt. What was its theology ? What 
were its forms of worship ? What light, if any, did it 
throw upon the problems of the future world ? What 
were its effects on personal character and the conduct 
of every-day life ? For by such crucial tests the value 
of all religions must be known. 

IL Theology, — What did it Declare concerning God? 
On this subject its teaching is twofold. It is im- 
portant that we should understand this at the begin- 
ning : we are dealing with a religio bifrons. One face 
it turns toward the priesthood, and another toward 
the people. This is scarcely to be wondered at when 
we remember the vast gulf of separation which lay 
between the educated or priestly class and the servile, 
ignorant, unambitious masses. The former were per- 



40 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

mitted to know and speculate concerning religious 
things ; the latter were told that God was mystery, 
and that must content them. 

To the priestly mind God was, pre-eminently, 
the source and author of life or power. The general 
name for deity was niitar^ which, as Renouf argues, 
means power, that being also the meaning of the 
Hebrew el. '' The extremely common Egyptian ex- 
pression iiittar mitra exactly corresponds in sense to 
the Hebrew El Shaddai, the very title by which God 
tells Moses that he was known to the patriarchs : 
* And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am 
Jahve (or Jehovah), and I appeared unto Abraham, 
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of ^/ Sliaddai^ 
but by my name Jahve was I not known to them.' 
There can be no doubt who that Power is which, in 
our translations, we do not hesitate to call God. It is 
unquestionably the true and only God, who ' is not far 
from any one of us, for in him we live and move and 
have our being,' whose ' eternal power and godhead ' 
and government of the world were made known 
through ^ that Light which enlighteneth every man 
that cometh into the world.' " 

In searching for an apt symbol it was inevitable that 
the Egyptians should fix upon the sun, which is the 
fountain of universal life and power. On many of the 
monuments the deity is thus represented. The sym- 
bol was no doubt oftentimes allowed to obscure the 
idea of the thing symbolized, yet we cannot doubt that 
in the philosophy of the Egyptian priests — that ar- 
canum of mysteries whose doors were open only to 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 4I 

the stoled and mitred few — back of all names and 
symbols was the thought of one supreme and only 
God, We find it on the tomb of Rameses, where the 
triumphant king is represented as declaring, " Ammon- 
Ra hath been at my right and left hand in battle. He 
hath brought the universe to my feet." So also in the 
name Nitk-pu-Nuk, found written on embalming-cloths, 
wherein is a wonderful likeness to the meaning of the 
name Jehovah, '' I am that I am." And not less in 
the following hymn, ascribed to the time of the earliest 
of the Pharaohs: 

" Glory to thee, who hast begotten all that is; 
Who hast created man ; 

Who hast made the gods and all creatures of the field; 
Who makest man to live ; 
Who hast no being second to thyself! 
Lord of generation ! thou givest to the living breath ; 
Thou makest the world to move in its seasons ; 
Thou orderest the course of the great river whose ways are secret; 
Thou art the Light of the world!" 

Amnion-Ra, — Two names were given interchange- 
ably to the Supreme One — Ra and Ammon : sometimes 
they are combined into a single name, Amn-Ra, The 
meaning of the word Ammon is concealment. This is 
the face which God turned toward the people. Ra 
means the sun ; that is, God as the author of life. He 
is represented as a hawk-headed man, his forehead en- 
circled with the solar disk. There are countless in- 
ferior deities also, bearing to Ra the same relation as 
the stars to the sun, borrowing all their splendor from 
him.^ 

^ '' Ra is not only the name of the sun-god; it is the usual word for 



42 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Minor Gods. — We are informed by Herodotus that 
these subordinate gods were divided into various ranks 
or orders. Manetho speaks of them as divine dynas- 
ties. They were all originally designed to represent 
God in different phases as the Creator of life. Here is 
the central thought of the pantheon — life ; and this 
must be our clue to the mysteries of the religion of 
Egypt. 

We are accustomed to say of God that he is a Being 
*' without body, parts or passions." To the Egyptian 
mind this was not necessary to the conception of him. 
Their gods had bodies ; they suffered from hunger, 
thirst, disease and old age. " They perspired, their 
limbs quaked, their head ached, their teeth chattered, 
their eyes wept, their nose bled. They were stung by 
reptiles and burnt by fire. They howled with pain and 
grief" And they were forced by threats and impreca- 
tions to grant the prayers of men. 

Osins. — One of these gods, Osiris, deserves a passing 

sun. In other mythologies the sun-god is borne in a chariot or on horse- 
back; in Egypt his course across the sky is made in a boat. The sky 
(Nu) is accordingly conceived as an expanse of water, of which the 
Nile is the earthly representative. Ra is said to proceed from * Nu, the 
father of the gods.' His adversary is Apap, who is represented as a 
serpent pierced with the weapons of the god. The conflict is not be- 
tween good and evil, but the purely physical one between light and 
darkness. Shu and Tefnut are the children of Ra ; Shu is air, and 
Tefnut is some form of moisture, probably dew. 

*' Whatever may be the case in other mythologies, I look upon the 
sunrise and sunset, on the daily returns of day and night, on the battle 
between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, 
that is acted every day, every month, every year, in heaven and in 
earth, as the principal subject of Eg)'ptian mythology." — Renouf's 
Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 113. 



i 

1 

I 



THE RELIGION OE ANCIENT EGYPT. 43 

mention.^ He is represented as a mummied figure with 
a crocodile's head, wearing on either side an ostrich- 
feather, which is the symbol of truth, and holding in 
his hands a shepherd's crook and a flail. The tradi- 
tion is that Osiris came down from heaven as an in- 
carnation of God and reigned over Egypt, conferring 
many incalculable benefits upon her people. But he 
was murdered by his enemy, Typhon, who cut his 
body in pieces and threw it into the Nile. His faith- 
ful wife Isis with many tears sought these fragments, 

^ " The parents of Osiris are Seb and Nut, and about these there can 
be no mistake. Seb is the earth, and Nut is heaven. Seb is identified 
with the earth in the older texts, and in the later ones * the back of 
Seb ' is a familiar term for the earth. Seb is also the Egyptian name 
for a certain species of goose, and in accordance with the homonymous 
tendency of the mythological period of all nations the god and the bird 
were identified ; Seb was called * the great cackler,' and there are traces 
of the myth of a * mundane ^gg ' which he * divided ' or hatched. Nut 
is the name of a female goddess frequently used synonymously with the 
other names of the sky, and she is as frequently pictured with her arms 
and legs extended over the earth, with the stars spread over her body. 
The marriage of heaven and earth is extremely common in mythologies : 
what is peculiar to the Egyptian myth is that earth is not represented as 
the mother of all things, but the father, and heaven is here the mother. 
From the union of Seb and Nut sprang the mild Osiris, the sun, the 
Isis, the dawn, wedded before they were born, and the fruit of their 
marriage was Horus, the sun in his full strength. Set the destroyer is 
also the son of Seb and Nut, but his triumph is in the west ; he is dark- 
ness, and his spouse Nephthys, a deity of mixed character, is the sun- 
set. There are traces of a legend according to which Osiris mistook 
Nephthys for his wife Isis. Nephthys, who loved him, encouraged the 
illusion, and from their embrace Anubis was born. Anubis, like his 
mother, is a deity of a mixed character, partly belonging to the diurnal, 
partly to the nocturnal, powers. It 's said of him that * he swallowed 
his father Osiris.' I believe that he represents the firelight or dusk im- 
mediately following the disappearance of the sun." — The Religion 0/ 
Ancient Egypt ^ p. 115. 



44 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

and when they were placed together, lo! Osiris was 
ahve again ; and he Hveth for evermore, enthroned in 
the judgment'hall of the invisible world. This has 
been justly pronounced '' a wonderful forefeeling of 
the gospel narrative " — an outline, though dim, of 
the incarnation, life, suffering, vicarious death, resur- 
rection and exaltation of Jesus the Christ. 

Mystery. — But this truth, in common with all the 
spiritual truths that centred in the pantheon of Egypt, 
was only for the initiated : " This is the hidden mys- 
tery. Tell it to no one ; let it be seen by no eye, heard 
by no ear. Only thou and thy teacher shall possess 
the knowledge of it.'' Before this holy of holies hung 
a veil which priests only might draw aside, and which 
never, like the curtain of Zion's holy place, was torn 
in twain. " What is God ?" the people asked. And 
the keepers of the oracles answered, '* Mystery." — 
*' And what is truth?" — " Mystery."— *' And what lies 
beyond the threshold of the eternal world ?" — " Mys- 
tery. It is not given unto you to know. Bow down 
with closed lips before your appointed gods." Says 
James Freeman Clarke : " The priesthood enveloped 
in mystery every truth, just as they swathed the 
mummies fold above fold in preparing them for tlie 
tomb." Not always can even we, on whom the light 
with its healing beams has arisen, solve the problems 
of the spiritual world ; 

" No victory comes of all our strife; 

From all we grasp the meaning slips; 
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life 

With the old question on her awful lips;" 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 45 

but to the Egyptians the very foundations of truth were 
shrouded in darkness. The eyes of the people, dying 
in their sins, were so holden that they saw not the God 
who stood beside them with the balm of Gilead in 
his hands. " I do not know," says a recent writer,^ 
"whether it has ever struck you, as you look into the 
faces of the Egyptian images at the museum, that they 
are full of wonder and awe — as children amazed at 
something that holds them in its spells, rather than as 
men of intellect and resolution who see the mystery, 
but are minded to explore it or die." The same won- 
dering and far-off look is seen even upon the face of 
the immovable Sphinx and in the grim features of the 
rams that line the avenues of the temples. The pyra- 
mids point up to heaven as if to say, " We are search- 
ing for it," and the labyrinths wind in and out among 
crypts and silent vaults as if to say, " Thou shalt never 
find it." The Nile seems with its sluggish flow to mur- 
mur, " I am the god of this valley, the producer of its 
life, first-born of the sun, which is the fountain ; yet 
thou knowest not whence I came; my source and over- 
flow alike are wrapped in darkness, and I am the genius 
of Egypt." 

Zoolatry, — What, then, did the people worship ? Not 
the sun, and certainly not the unseen principle of life 
of which the sun and stars were but luminous shad- 
ows. Nay, they worshiped whatever the priests w^ere 
pleased to set before them ; and, mindful of the look 
upon the Sphinx's face, they asked no questions. The 
priests said, "We are the custodians of the higher 
^ Baldwin Brown. 



46 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

modes of truth ; they are not for you. Be content 
to know that God is hfe, and whosoever worships hfe 
in any form worships hirn. Look about you on the 
towering palm, the growing barley, the leek and the 
onion : there is life in all. Or go down to the river : 
the ibis is there and the crocodile, the lizard and the 
snake. These be vour srods !" In this manner the 
people came to worship trees and birds and every 
living thing that creepeth upon the face of the earth, 
and Eg>^pt became the land of zo61atr}^ Among these 
living things, which her people regarded with reverence 
because they conceived them to be manifestations of 
the divine life, were, notably, the bull, the IMendesian 
ram, the luminous-eyed cat, the crocodile, the serpent 
and the ibis. These all received divine honors and 
were embalmed by the priests. The chiefest of them 
was the bull Apis, representing life in its highest form 
as the productive force of nature. A few years ago 
an arched gallery two thousand feet long was discov- 
ered near Memphis filled with the mummies of sacred 
bulls. It will readily be imagined that the worship of 
this god was celebrated with rites of a most obscene 
character. And, indeed, if the entire Eg}'ptian cere- 
monial could be described or reproduced before us, we 
would turn away in shame and confusion of face; for 
of all the great religions of the world this is the most 
abject. 

Picture a man of Eg}'pt, burdened with a sense of 
wrong-doing and urged on by a vague desire for recon- 
ciliation with an offended Deit}', visiting one of the 
temples of his national faith. By a vast avenue of 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 47 

sphinxes he reaches a portico of massive monolithic 
columns. He hears afar off weird strains of music ; 
the air is heavy with floating incense ; processions of 
shaven priests pass silently by. As he advances among 
innumerable statues of grotesque divinities the avenues 
grow narrower, the figures less colossal. He passes 
out of one great columned chamber into another, each 
less imposing than the former. At length he finds 
himself in a narrow cell ; this is the adytum, or holiest 
of all. And yonder, in the dim light, he discovers the 
gleaming eyes of a cynocephalous ape or of a mum- 
mied cat, or mayhap it is nothing but an onion. These 
be thy gods, O son of the Pharaohs ! 

I say, man bowing at such an idol shrine as this has 
reached his most utter degradation. It matters not 
what spiritual truth may lie at the basis of his wor- 
ship; here is an immortal soul brutalized and lower 
than the creeping thing it worships, for it is a true 
saying that no worshiper is ever better than his god. 

" Who does not know," asks Juvenal in one of his 
satires, " what kinds of monsters demented Egypt wor- 
ships ? One part adores the crocodile, another quakes 
before the ibis gorged with serpents. The golden image 
of a sacred long-tailed ape glitters where the magic 
chords resound from mutilated Memnon, and ancient 
Thebes lies in ruin with her hundred gates. There 
whole towns venerate cats, here a river fish, there a dog, 
but no one Diana. It is impiety to violate and break 
with the teeth the leek and onion. O holy races to 
whom such deities as these are born in their gardens !" ^ 

1 Renouf. 



48 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Immortality, — Let us not conclude, however, that 
there was nothing good or wholesome in the religion 
of Egypt. It spoke with no uncertain voice concern- 
ing the great doctrine of immortality and judgment 
after death. The very architecture of the Pyramids 
had its creed ; no man can look upon their massive- 
ness without the conviction that its builders hoped to 
live for ever. The lotus-flower opening with the early 
sun, and the phoenix rising from its ashes, teach more 
beautifully than any formulated dogma the resurrection 
of the body. And why should the Egyptians have so 
carefully embalmed their dead, wrapping them in spices 
that have warded off the tooth of time during these 
forty centuries, had not they believed that the soul 
was destined to reanimate them? 

They conceived of this present life as the mere vesti- 
bule of the endless one. Diodorus says : '' The Egyp- 
tians call their houses hostelries, on account of the 
short time during w^hich they inhabit them, but the 
tombs they call eternal dwelling-places." Renouf, com- 
menting upon this remark of Diodorus, says : " The 
latter part of it is strictly and literally true : pa feta^ 
* eternal dwelling-place,' is an expression which is met 
with at every instant in the inscriptions of the earliest 
periods descriptive of the tomb. The word anchiii, 
which literally signifies the ' living,' is in innumerable 
places used emphatically for the ' departed,' who are 
enjoying everlasting life. The notion of everlasting 
life, aiich feta^ is among the few words written upon 
the wooden coffin, now in the British Museum, of 
King Mykerinos of the third pyramid. Neb anch, 



I 



THE RELIGION OE ANCIENT EGYPT 49 

'lord of life/ is one of the names given to the sar- 
cophagus. In the very ancient inscription of Una 
the coffin is called hen en anchht^ ^ the chest of the 
living/ It is only evil spirits who are spoken of in 
the sacred writings of the Egyptians as ' the dead/ " 
It is obvious from this, that whatever other virtues 
were lacking in this religion, it did give a due promi- 
nence to the doctrine of life beyond death, as certain 
of our own poets have written : 

" To die is to begin to live : it is to end 
An old, stale, weary work, and to commence 
A newer and a better : 'tis to leave 
Deceitful knaves for the society 
Of gods and goodness.'* 

The Suten-hotep-ta. — The usual inscription over the 
lintel of the tomb is this : " A royal table of propitiation 
grant Anubis, who dwells within the divine house. May 
sepulture be granted in the nether world, in the land 
of the divine Menti, the good, the great, to the de- 
parted one who is faithful to the great God !" On 
later tombs the inscription is as follows : " A royal 
table of propitiation grant Osiris, dwelling in Amenti, 
lord of Abydos. May he grant the funeral oblations, 
bread, beer, oxen, geese, wine, milk, oil, incense, wrap- 
pings, all gifts of vegetation, whatever heaven gives or 
earth produces, to enjoy the Nile, to come forth as a 
living soul, to come in and go out at the Ristat, that 
the soul may not be repulsed at the gates of the nether 
world, to be glorified among the favored ones in pres- 
ence of Un-nefer, to receive the aliments on the altars 
of the great God, to breathe the delicious breezes of 
4 



so THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

the north wind, and to drink from the depth of the 
river." ^ 

This prayer for the dead was called the Sitten-hotep- 
ta ; it was the Paternoster of the Egyptian ritual, and 
was supposed to have been given by divine revelation. 
The most meritorious of works was to repeat a consid- 
erable number of Siiteii-hotep-tas in behalf of the de- 
parted.^ In the moral writings great stress was placed 
upon the service in behalf of the dead. Among the 
Maxims of Ani it is written : " Give the water of the 
funeral sacrifice to thy father and mother who repose 
in the tomb; renew the water ^ of the divine oblations. 

1 Renouf. 

2 '* Innumerable inscriptions call upon the passers-by to invoke the 
gods in behalf of the departed : * O all ye who are living upon earth,' 
* who love life and hate death,' * you who are in the service of Osiris or 
Anubis,' * priest, prophet, scribe, spondist, ministrant, male or female, 
every man and every woman, passing by this tomb, tablet, statue, or shrine, 
whether you be passing northward or southward, — as you desire to 
enjoy the favor of the king, or as you desire your name to remain upon 
earth or to transmit your dignities to your children, or as you love and 
obey the gods of Egypt, or as you wish to be blessed by the gods of 
your cities, or by your wish to possess a part of the divine abode of 
Osiris who dwells in Amenti, or to be faithful to the great God, or as 
you wish to flourish upon earth and pass on to the blessed, — say a 
Suten-hotep-ta,' etc. (Here follows the entire formula of the Suten- 
hotep-ta.)" — The Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 143. 

2 " The lustral water offered on earth to the dead had its counterpart 
in the other world. The most usual representation of this is the picture 
in which the goddess Nut pours out the water of life to the deceased 
from the interior of a sycamore tree. In a picture published by M. Chabas 
the deceased kneels before Osiris and receives from him the water of life 
from a vessel under which is written anch ba, * that the soul may live.' 
The picture is taken from the mummy of a priest who lived twelve 
hundred years before Christ. But the same idea occurs in a Greek 
inscription found at Saqara by Mr. C. Wescher. * She lived twenty- 



THE EELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 5 1 

Neglect not to do it even when thou art away from thy 
dwelling. Thy son will do it in like manner for thee." 

Retribution. — On many of the tombs are pictured the 
scales of judgment — a human heart in one side, a feather 
in the other, while the god Anubis stands by watching. 
Here is plainly the doctrine of retribution : " For we 
must all appear before the judgment-seat, that every 
one may receive according to that he hath done, 
whether it be good or bad." It was not lawful to 
bury the dead until sentence had been passed upon 
their character by a board of forty-two assessors (this 
being the number of classified sins), who must deter- 
mine whether they were worthy of a resting-place in 
the sepulchre. If not, their mummies were placed on 
the margin of the lake, ** their culprit ghosts waiting 
and wandering along its shores for a hundred years." 
And this was but an earnest of a more solemn trial 
which awaited every one in the shadowy regions of 
Amenti. 

TheKa. — A curious feature of the Egyptian religion 
was its doctrine of the ka, A man was regarded as 
having a double personality. His alter ego^ or spiritual 
double, was called his ka. By this he swore, as the 
Roman by his genius and the Persian by his fravashi. 
On the monuments of Egypt the royal ka is repre- 
sented close beside the king himself The worshiper 
was accustomed to offer sacrifice to the kaic of the 
dead. The common belief was that the disembodied 
personality of each individual on being ushered into 

five years,' the inscription says, ' and Osiris beneath the earth gave her 
the refreshing water.' " — Ibid., p. 147. 



52 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the unknown world was provided with a substantial 
body, and at once entered upon pursuits which were 
strikingly similar to those of this present life. 

Heaven. — The life of the blessed is thus described : 
" He has the use of all his limbs ; he eats and drinks, 
and satisfies every one of his physical wants exactly 
as in his former life. His bread is made of the corn of 
Pe, a famous town of Egypt, and the beer he drinks is 
from the red corn of the Nile. The flesh of cattle and 
fowl is given to him, and refreshing waters are poured 
out to him under the boughs of sycamores which 
shade him from the heat. The cool breezes of the 
north WM'nd breathe upon him. The gods themselves 
provide him with food; he eats from the table of Osiris 
at Ristat and from the tables of the sun-god Ra. He 
is given to drink out of vessels of milk or wine ; cakes 
and flesh are provided for him from the divine abode 
of Anubis. The gods of Heliopolis themselves bring 
the divine offerings. He eats the bread which the 
goddess Tait has cooked, and he breathes the sweet 
odors of flowers. He washes his feet in silver basins 
which the god Ptah of Memphis, the inventor of all 
arts, has himself sculptured. Fields also are allotted 
to him in the lands of Aarru and Hotep, and he culti- 
vates them. It is characteristic of an industrious and 
agricultural population that part of the bliss of a future 
state should consist of such operations as ploughing 
and hoeing, sowing and reaping, rowing on the canals 
and collecting the harvests daily. We are told that the 
height of corn in the fields of Aarru is seven cubits, 
and that the length of the ears is two cubits. This 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT, 53 

blissful place is surrounded by a wall of steel, and it is 
from its gate that the sun comes forth in the eastern 
sky/' ^ 

HelL — Should the ka^ or soul, of an Egyptian fail to 
secure a favorable verdict at the court of Osiris, it 
wanders forth into Tiiat, the nether world, to en- 
counter and be overcome by a thousand calamities, 
such as "being turned away from its own door,'' 
breathing a fiery atmosphere, going to Neminat^ the 
headsman's block, being forced to eat filth and suffer- 
ing corruption. The comprehensive title of these is 
"the second death." 

The kail of the departed were enabled to defend 
themselves from the dangers of the nether world only 
by the use of charms and talismans. Hence the cus- 
tom of covering the mummies with cabalistic phrases 
and images of animal gods. Such words as the fol- 
lowing are frequently found inscribed upon the tomb : 
" Back, crocodile of the west ! there is an asp upon 
me ; I shall not be given to thee. Dart not thy flame 
upon me !" There was supposed to be great virtue in 
a golden asp or scarabseus or a buckle of red quartz 
typifying the blood of Isis. 

Assimilation with the Gods. — The doctrine of im- 
mortality, as held by the priests, was to this effect : 
that when a man dies and becomes maa-cheru, or 
justified, by safely passing the ordeal of judgment, he 
is identified or assimilated in some mysterious way 
with Deity itself In some cases, indeed, he is assim- 
ilated with many gods, taking the hair of one, the eyes 

1 Renouf. 



54 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

of another, the Hps of a third, and so becoming a sort 
of animated pantheon ; and all this without losing his 
personal identity. He still remembers his former life 
among men, and from his place in the mummy crypt, 
assuming the name of some beneficent god, he speaks 
comfortable things to his mourning friends. 

It was held also among the initiated that the dead 
have power to assume all kinds of living shapes, as 
the turtle-dove, the serpent, the hawk, the crocodile, 
the heron, the lotus-flower, and in such strange guise 
to range the universe at will. 

'' What shall I Do to be Saved T— The thought of sal- 
vation, as held among Christian people, had little or 
no place in this religion. Mercy was an unknown 
word ; there was no forgiveness with the gods. The 
sum and substance of the doctrine of destiny was this : 
" Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
If one would reach the land of Amenti and abide in 
peace, let him hold himself in readiness to have his 
heart weighed against the feather of truth. The only 
answer possible to a sinner's cry, " What shall I do to 
be saved?" was this: "Prepare for the judgment of 
Osiris by observing the rules of right conduct." 

Morality. — It remains for us to note briefly the in- 
fluence of this religion on the character of the people. 
They were familiar with a rule of right living called 
niaat, 

Maat. — This word, which is of frequent occurrence, 
signifies '' a perfectly straight and inflexible rule." It 
is from the root ina^ meaning to stretch out, and, like 
our word rightj has reference primarily to law and 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 55 

order. '' Maat',' says Renouf, '' is Law, not in the 
forensic sense of command issued either by a human 
sovereign authority or by a divine legislator, like the 
law of the Hebrews, but in the sense of that unerring 
order which governs the universe, whether in its phys- 
ical or in its moral aspect. This is surely a great and 
noble conception." 

An Elaborate Code. — But beyond this the Egyptians 
had an elaborate code of injunctions and prohibitions 
as to particular sins. *' Besides the crimes of violence 
and theft, different offences against chastity are men- 
tioned; not only evil-speaking and lying, but exag- 
geration, chattering and idle words, are condemned; 
he who reviles the king, his father or his god, the evil 
listener, and he who turns a deaf ear to the words of 
truth and justice, he who causes pain to another or 
who in his heart thinks meanly of God, — all these fail 
to satisfy the condition of admission into the ranks of 
the triumphant dead." ^ 

The Maxims of Ptah-hotep, -^On^ of the sacred books, 
a fragment of which is preserved in the Imperial Li- 
brary at Paris, was an extended treatise on practical 
morality. It purports to have been written by Prince 
Ptah-hotep, whose sayings partake less of the wisdom 
of Solomon than of the rude sagacity of Poor Richard. 

" The man is happy," wrote he, " who lives upon his 
own labor." 

" Love thy wife ; flattery will serve thy purpose with 
her better than churlish words." 

" Curse not thy master before God." 
^ Renouf. 



$6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

" The bad man's life is nothing better than death." 

" What we say in secret is known to Him who 
created us." 

" Gossip is abominable." 

" Walk not with a fool." 

Aside from this volume of proverbial philosophy- 
there were thirty commandments, of which no traces 
remain. Thus the Egyptians were not without lights 
to walk by. 

M. Chabas says of the Egyptian code of morals : 
*' None of the Christian virtues were forgotten in it. 
Piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in word and 
action, chastity, the protection of the weak, benev- 
olence toward the humble, deference to superiors, 
respect for property in the minutest details, — all were 
expressed there." In the '' Book of the Dead " the 
soul of the righteous is represented as saying, ** I did 
that which was right and hated the wrong ; I was bread 
to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the 
naked, a refuge to the needy ; and that which I did 
unto him the great Ra hath done unto me."^ It 
must be remembered, however, that the moral precepts 
of any people are always better than their practical 
morals ; their sacred books are better than their lives. 

No Egyptian Heroes, — It is a notable fact that Egypt 
had no heroes. The religion of the Bull and the Ibis 
could not but beget in its disciples a gross animal life. 
The poor labored for meat ; the rich and learned had 
their ambition smothered in wanton luxuries. Other 
empires have left us great men who, though their 

^ Renouf. 



THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 57 

graves are forgotten, still tread the earth with stately 
steppings ; but Rameses and Sesostris are names and 
nothing more/ Their souls were wrapped up with 
their bodies in mummy-cloths and laid away in end- 
less rest. There was nothing in their religion to stim- 
ulate the doing of immortal deeds. 

The Religion of Sadness, — Another significant fact is 
this : that while the Egyptians were the most mirthful 
people on earth, they were the saddest of worshipers. 
Apuleius says:^ *' The gods of Greece rejoice in 
dances, but the gods of Egypt in lamentations." And 
another says : ** The Egyptians offer tears on the altars 
of their gods." Is not this the old story of the golden 
calf? They who worship Apis must ever drink the 
dust of their idol mingled with bitter waters. There 
is no spiritual joy save in the worship of that Supreme 
One at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore. 

An illustrious lady, the wife of Pasherenptah, is 
represented as thus addressing her husband from the 
grave : '' O my brother, my spouse, forbear not to eat 
and drink, to drain the cup of joy, to enjoy woman's 
love and make holiday of life ; for as to Amenti, it is 
the land of slumber and darkness, an abode of sorrow 

1 " All the kings of the nations lie in glory; 

Cased in cedar and shut in a sacred gloom ; 
Swathed in linen and precious unguents old, 
Painted with cinnabar and rich with gold. 

Silent they rest, in solemn salvatory, 
Sealed from the moth and the owl and the flittermouse — 
Each with his name on his brow." 

Jean Ingelow. 

' Quoted by James Freeman Clarke. 



58 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

for all. We wake no more to see our loved ones. 
The dwellers on earth have waters of life, but thirst 
is for ever with me. I weep for the waters that pass 
by." ^ 

The religion of Egypt is dead. It has utterly van- 
ished from the face of the earth. ** On the walls of 
her tombs," says Draper, " still remain Pthah the 
Creator and Neph the divine spirit sitting at the 
potter's wheel turning clay into the forms of men; 
and Athor, who receives the setting sun into her 
arms. The granite statues have outlived the gods." 

Fram this, as from other false systems, we turn 
with a feeling of ineffable relief to the glorious gos- 
pel of the blessed God. Here is no worship of birds 
and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Here is 
no mystery along the path that leads to eternal life. 
Nay, it is so plain that the wayfaring man need not 
err therein. What simplicity is here, and yet what 
grandeur! A cross, an open sepulchre, a God with 
outstretched hands. For God so loved the world that 
he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. This is that great " mystery of godliness," deeper 
and more wonderful than any behind the veil of Isis, 
which God in Jesus Christ has revealed to the least 
of his little ones. 

^ Renouf. 



III. 
ZOROASTRIANISM. 



I. The Sacred Book : 
Zend-Avesta. 
The Poets. 
II. The Central Thought: 
Dualism. 

Ormuzd and Ahriman. 
Prayer. 
III. Three Distinguishing Features: 
(i) Fire-worship. 

(2) The Idea of Conflict. 

Moral Code : The Four Laws. 

(3) The Fravashis ; Philosophy of the Future. 

' ' What shall I do to be saved f ' Repeat the Patet. 



III. ZOROASTRIANISM, 

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT PERSIA. 

" And behold there came wise men from the east to 
Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of 
the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and 
are come to worship him.'* These " wise men " were 
Magi, or fire-worshipers. It is their religion which 
is now to engage our attention. We turn our eyes 
toward Persia, the most magnificent of empires, sym- 
bolized by the silver breast of the great Babylonian 
image. What memories are awakened by her name ! 
Years have not dimmed the crowns of Cyrus, Xerxes 
and Longimanus, or of the beautiful queen who 
reigned in Shushan, the palace of the lily. Max 
Miiller says : *^ There were periods in the history of 
the world when the religion of Zoroaster threatened 
to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of all 
other gods. If in the battles of Marathon and Salamis 
Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state religion of 
the empire of Cyrus might have become the religion 
of the whole civilized world." But there is no room 
for any " if" History is not a fabric of happenings. 
All its events are singly spun and woven together in 
the loom of Providence. The Weaver breaks no 
threads, loses none, misweaves none. 

61 



62 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Of Persepolis, the wonder of the world for its mag- 
nificence, naught remains save heaps of ruins. " The 
spider hangs her veil undisturbed in the halls of Kai 
Kosrou, the owl stands sentinel on Haroun-al-Ras- 
chid's fallen palace-towers, the dromedary browses in 
the lonesome gardens of Babylon." 

A Dead Religion, — And the religion of Zoroaster has 
shared the doom of the great empire that espoused it. 
What can be sadder than the thought of a dead religion? 
We lament the lost arts ; we stand regretful among the 
crumbling porches of old systems of philosophy ; we 
read not unmoved the epitaphs of fallen thrones and 
dynasties. These, however, are merely losses to the 
world's material possessions. But the decay of a re- 
ligion involves the ruin of countless inestimable hopes 
and incalculable destinies. It is as if a costly-laden 
ship went down with immortal souls clinging to every 
rope and spar. 

The sum-total of the followers of Zoroaster to-day is 
not more than one hundred and fifty thousand. These 
are for the most part congregated in and around the 
city of Bombay. By their Mohammedan neighbors 
they are called Gtiebres, or infidels. They still feed 
with sandal-wood the sacred fire which tradition says 
has never been extinguished on the altar of the Sun. 
And still, white-robed and white-turbaned, they circle 
the altar, singing hymns like the following, which their 
fathers sang when Medo-Persia was mightiest among 
the empires of the earth : 

** Praise to Ormuzd, great Creator ! 
With our life and bodies praise ; 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 63 

Purer than the purest, fairest, 

Bright through never-ending days ! 
What is good and what is brilliant, 

That we reverence in thee — 
Thy good spirit, thy good kingdom, 

Wisdom, law and equity." 

These are the only adherents of the mighty power that 
once, towering in pride, hewed out the mountain-clefts 
for temples, branded her mark in the servile foreheads 
of the Jews, and equipped the most formidable fleets 
and armies ever seen that she might hurl them against 
the floating battlements of Alexander. 

The religion of Zoroaster had, at its best, no great 
measure of vital tenacity. In the second century of 
the Christian era it bowed submissively and wellnigh 
yielded up the ghost at the bidding of the idolatrous 
Parthian priests. From this it recovered only to trem- 
ble and succumb again at the shaking of Mohammed's 
sword. Perhaps its very strength has been its weak- 
ness. Lacking the vital inspiration of heaven-given 
truth, it was yet possessed of so many of the humble 
graces and gentle courtesies of true religion as to be 
unfitted for standing against the brute forces of false- 
hood. 

Before proceeding to a more minute exposition of 
the characteristic features of this religion It is proper 
that somewhat should be said about its propliet and Ids 
book. 

Zoroasler. — Zoroaster, if born at all (for there are 
those who question his real existence, holding that the 
name represents merely a divine principle), was born 
in Bactria not less than three thousand years ago, 



64 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and how much earlier none can tell.^ Tradition says 
that 

" As soon as born he laughed a merry laugh, 
Though other children weep when first the air they quaff; 
His parents then, Dogdiiyah and Purshasp, 
Cried out, * 'Tis some great prophet in our arms we clasp.' *' 

The meaning of the name given him is "golden splen- 
dor." His earlier years are a blank. He first appears 
as a priest ministering in the temple of the Sun. His 
heart is distressed by the gross idolatries of the people, 
and not less by the bitter sense of his own ignorance 
and weakness. There by the altar he utters his cry, 
the first prayer to Ahura-Mazda: 

" I believe thee, O God, to be the best of all, the 
source of light for the universe. All shall choose 
thee as the fountain of light, thee, thou holiest 
Mazda ! 

1 *' The historic statements that have come down to us on the subject 
of the age of Zoroaster, with whose name the origin of Iranic cultiva- 
tion is by common consent regarded as intimately connected, are so 
absolutely conflicting that they must be pronounced valueless. Eudoxus 
and Aristotle said that Zoroaster lived six thousand years before the 
death of Plato, or B. c. 6348. Hermippus placed him five thousand 
years before the Trojan War, or B. c. 6184. Berosus declared of him 
that he reigned at Babylon toward the beginning of the twenty-third 
century before our era,* having ascended the throne, according to his 
chronological views, about B. C. 2286. Xanthus Lydus, the contem- 
porary of Herodotus and the first Greek writer who treats of the sub- 
ject, made him live six hundred years only before the invasion of 
Greece by Xerxes, or B. C. 1080. The later Greeks and Romans de- 
clared that he was contemporary with Darius Hystaspis, thus making 
his date about B. C. 520-485. Between the earliest and the latest of 
the dates assigned by these authorities the difference (it will be seen) 
is one of nearly six thousand years P^ — Origin of Nations^ p. 97. 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 6$ 

" I ask thee — oh tell it aright, thou living God ! — hy 
what means is this universe supported and vi^ho is the 
promoter of life ? 

" I ask thee— oh tell it aright, thou living God ! — 
who was in the beginning the creator of truth ? Who 
made the sun and stars, the waxing and waning moon ? 

"I ask thee — oh tell it aright, thou living God — 
who holdeth the earth and the skies overarching it ? 
Who made the rivers and the trees ? Who begat light 
and darkness, kindly sleep and the awaking ? 

"Who hath made the mornings, noons and nights, 
those wayside sentinels who remind us of duty ? Oh 
tell us aright, thou living God." 

In answer to that cry came, as he supposed, a rev- 
elation from Ahura-Mazda, pointing out for him the 
career of a reformer, and promising all needed sup- 
plies of light and divine countenance. His reforms 
were aimed, on the one hand, at Pantheism with its 
priesthood corrupt, mercenary and shameless, and on 
the other at the worship of idols.^ As against these 
he rose up to testify for Ahura-Mazda, the Lord of 
light. 

A picture has been drawn by Bunsen of an assembly 
of the people called together by Zoroaster on one of 
the hills adjacent to the primeval city of Bactria to 

1*' In the early nature-worship idolatry had been allowed, but the 
Iranic system pronounced against it from the first. No images of 
Ahura-Mazda or of the Izeds profaned the severe simplicity of an 
Iranic temple. It was only after a long lapse of ages that, in con- 
nection with a foreign worship, idolatry crept in. The old Zoroastrian- 
ism was in this respect as pure as the religion of the Jews." — Rawlin- 
son's Seven Monarchies^ ii. 48. 
5 



66 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

determine whether they would worship many gods or 
one. Standing before the multitude, he addressed 
them in these words, as found in the Zend-Avesta: 

" I will proclaim to all listeners the praises of the 
all-wise God. Hear now what is best, that every man 
may choose his creed before the coming of judg- 
ment. 

" There were two ancient spirits, twins, who revealed 
the evil and good. Of these the bad spirit chose the 
evil ; the other, he whose garment is the eternal arch 
of heaven, chose the right. So will all who faithfully 
serve Ahura-Mazda. 

" Let us be counted among those who benefit the 
world. O Ahura-Mazda, bliss-conferring truth ! let 
our minds abide in the dwelling-place of wisdom. 

*' O men, clinging to these commandments of the 
great Mazda, which are a torment to the wicked and a 
blessing to the good, ye shall gain the victory over all." 

I. Tlie Sacred Book. — Such hymns, or invocations, 
compose the larger part of the Zend-Avesta, which is 
the one sacred book of the Fire- worshipers. The mean- 
ing of Zend-Avesta is " living word." ^ It is believed to 
have been addressed to men by Ahura-Mazda through 
the lips of Zoroaster his prophet. It consists of four 
parts — Yazna, Vispered, Vendidad and Yesht. These 
contain little or nothing as to theology or as to the 
conduct of daily life, but an endless multiplicity of 
prayers and hymns. The book is simply a liturgy. 

^ So Maurice. According to Rawlinson, ** Avesta " means text^ and 
"Zend" means conwient : so that the full title, Avesta- u-Zend, or, as 
contracted, Avesta-Zend, means "text and comment," 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 67 

Its opening hymn is entitled " The Archangels' First 
Anthem ; or, The Revealed Thought, Word and Deed 
of Zarethustra/' Many of these hymns are exceed- 
ingly beautiful, as this fragment : " In the name of 
God, the Giver and Forgiver, rich in love, praise to 
the name of Ormuzd, the God that hath the title, who 
always was, always is and always will be ! Praise to 
the omniscience of God, which hath sent us that wis- 
dom of wisdoms which finds an escape from hell for 
the soul at the bridge and leads it over into Paradise, 
the fragrant home of the pure !'' There are many un- 
intelligible things in the Zend- Avesta— many that sug- 
gest mysticism and dense profundity. And little won- 
der, if they took their rise, as Muller says, in that 
" period of mystic incubation when India and Egypt, 
Greece and Babylonia, were sitting together and gos- 
siping like crazy old women, chattering with toothless 
gums and silly brains about the dreams and joys of 
their youth." ^ 

Though the liturgy of the Zoroastrians can be found 
only in the hymns of the Zend-Avesta, their doctrines 

1 " The result, however brought about, which must always remain 
doubtful, was the authoritative issue of a volume which the learned of 
Europe have now possessed for some quarter of a century, and which 
has recently been made accessible to the general reader by the labors 
of Spiegel. This work, the Zend-Avesta, while it may contain frag- 
ments of a very ancient literature, took its present shape in the time of 
Aitaxerxes, and was probably then first collected from the mouths of the 
Zoroastrian priests and published by Arda-Viraf. Certain additions 
may since have been made to it, but we are assured that * their num 
ber is small,' and that we have no reason to doubt that the text of the 
Avesta in the days of Arda-Viraf was, on the whole, exactly the same 
as at present." — Seven Monarchies, iii. 272. 



68 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and the precepts by which their daily lives were guided 
must be sought elsewhere, chiefly among the poets. 
Persia is the warm mother-land of poets. There is 
that in the air — fragrance of vineyards and rose-trees, 
songs of the nightingale, dalliance of color and warm 
sunlight — which awakens all genius. Apart from 
Zoroaster, who stands among the Persian bards as 
Saul among the prophets, there were Hafiz and Saadi 
and many other immortal names. " In all ages and 
languages,'* says Alger, "the poet is a preacher." 
Doubted ; yet certainly the literature of Persia " re- 
veals her poets as the keenest, tenderest, sublimest, 
most versatile of preachers ;*' and the religion of 
Persia has no existence apart from the afflatus of the 
Zoroastrian bards. Where else but under those clear 
shining skies could fancies like this be born ? — 

" The firmament is God's love-letter writ for man ; 

The sun is the seal stamped on its envelope of air; 
The confidential night tears off the blazing seal, 

And lays the solemn star-script, God's handwriting, bare." 

Let us now note the peculiar and distinguishing 
features of this religion, as derived not only from the 
Zend-Avesta, but from the actual life and beliefs of 
the fire-worshipers. 

II. The Central Thought: Ditalisrn, — Its teaching is, 
that there are two gods — Ormuzd.or Ahura-Mazda, 
and Ahriman or Angra-Mainyu — and these two are 
equal.^ 

^ " Dualism proper, or a belief in two uncreated and independent 
principles, one a principle of good and the other a principle of evil, 
was no part of the original Zoroastrianism. At the same time we find. 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 69 

" Ormuzd and Ahriman : Devotion's dazzling child, 
And Doubt's demoniac son, false, filthy, black and wild ; 
The moment they were born creation they began : 
Ormuzd all good things made; all evil, Ahriman." 

The latter, ** false, filthy, black and wild,'' has no 
altars, and, though recognized as an equal antag- 

even in the Gathas, the earliest portions of the Zend-Avesta, the germ 
out of which dualism sprung. 

" The Iranians came to believe in the existence of two coeternal and 
coequal Persons, one good and the other evil, between whom there had 
been from all eternity a perpetual and never-ceasing conflict, and be- 
tween whom the same conflict would continue to rage through all 
coming time. 

" The dualistic principle being thus fully adopted, and the world 
looked on as the battle-ground between two independent and equal 
powers engaged in a perpetual strife, it was natural that the imagina- 
tion should complete the picture by ascribing to these superhuman rivals 
the circumstantials that accompany a great struggle between human 
adversaries. The two kings required, in the first place, to have their 
councils, which were accordingly assigned them, and were respectively 
composed of six councilors. The councilors of Ahura-Mazda — called 
Amesha-Spentasy or * immortal saints,' afterward corrupted into Am- 
shashpands — were Vohu-Mano, Asha-Vahista, Khshathra-Vairya, 
Cpenta-Armaiti, Haurvatat and Ameretat. Those of Angra-Mainyu 
were Ako-Mano, Indra, Caurva, Naonhaitya and two others whose 
names are interpreted as Darkness and Poison. 

" As the two principles of good and evil have their respective coun- 
cils, so have they likewise their armies. The good spirit has created 
thousands of angelic beings who everywhere perform his will and fight 
on his side against the evil one ; and the evil one has equally on his 
part called into being thousands of malignant spirits, who are his emis- 
saries in the world, doing his work continually and fighting his battles. 
These are the devas or dives so famous in Persian fairy mythology. 
They are * wicked, bad, false, untrue, the originators of mischief, most 
baneful, destructive, the basest of all beings.' The whole universe is 
full of them. They aim primarily at destroying all the good creations 
of Ahura-Mazda; but if unable to destroy, they content themselves 
with perverting and corrupting. They dog the steps of men, templing 



70 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

onist of the good Ormuzd, no divine honors are paid 
to him. 

Onjiuzd. — A brief quotation from a child's cate- 
chism printed for use among the modern Parsees will 
suffice to show that, while possessing a dualistic the- 
ology, they practice a monotheistic worship. The first 
question is : 

'' Whom do we Zoroastrians believe in ?" 

'* We believe in one God, and in none beside him. 

" Who is that God ? 

*' The God who created the heavens and earth, the 
sun, moon and stars, the angels and the four elements. 
Him we believe in ; him we worship, invoke and adore. 

*' And do we not believe in any other? 

'* Whoso believes in any other God is an infidel, and 
shall suffer the penalties of hell." 

Aliriman. — Nevertheless, throwing his shadow over 
this faith in the one, stands the other — Angra-Mainyu, 
the evil-minded. There is a divergence here from the 
biblical thought of Satan in this, that in the latter case 
there is a divine foot upon the serpent's head, while in 
the former two Titans of equal birth, majesty and power 
stand opposing each other. Satan is a worm at God's 

ihem to sin, and, as soon as they sin, obtaining a fearful power over 
them. 

"At the head of Ahura- Mazda's army is the angel Serosh, *the 
sincere, the beautiful, the victorious, the true, the master of truth.' 
lie protects the territories of the Iranians, wounds, and sometimes 
even slays, the demons, and is engaged in a perpetual struggle against 
them, never slumbering night or day, but guarding the world with his 
sword, more particularly after sunset, when the demons have the greatest 
power." — Seven Monarchies, ii. 5^~54* 






ZOROASTRIANISM, 7 1 

feet ; Ahriman is Ormuzd's equal. It remains yet to 
be seen which shall pluck the world, the costly guerdon 
of their struggle, from his rival's hands. Yet nowhere 
is there a clearer hope than under these blue splendid 
skies of Persia that good shall finally prevail, and the 
earth shine as a jewel in the crown of the " all-perfect, 
all-powerful, all-glorious." ^ 

Traces are seen everywhere among the poets, who 
are the truest preachers of the Zoroastrian creed, of 
warm desire and aspirations after nearness to this God 
behind the dazzling veil. There is said to have been 
one whose supreme desire was to approach the sun so. 
near as to be consumed by it. Thus it is written: 

" Blest time that frees me from the bonds of clay 
To track the lost one in his airy course ! 
Like motes exulting in their parent ray, 
My kindling spirit rushes to its source." 

Nor does the Zoroastrian's God turn away " him that 
cometh unto him ;" rather, 

" Who comes toward me an inch through doubtings dim, 
In blazing light I do approach a yard toward him." 

The Zoroastrian would not differ from the Christian 

^ Here there is a difference of opinion. Rawlinson says : " The 
dualism professed was of the most extreme and pronounced kind. 
Ormuzd and Ahriman, the principles of good and evil, were expressly 
declared to be * twins.' They had 'in the beginning come together to 
create life and death,' and to settle * how the world was to be.' There 
v/as no priority of existence of the one over the other, and no decided 
superiority. The two, being coeval, had contended from all eternity, 
and would, it was almost certain, continue to contend to all eternity ^ 
neither being able to vanquish the other. Thus an eternal struggle was 
postulated between good and evil, and the issue was doul)triil, neither 
side possessing any clear and manifest advantage." 



^2 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

in his definition of that which separates between the 
soul and God : 

" The dazzling beauty of the loved one shines unseen, 
And selfs the curtain o'er the road. Away, O screen !" 

Perhaps their aspirations, enkindled beneath redder 
stars and a warmer sun, are more sensual than ours. 
Watts or Wesley would scarcely have sung like this : 

"There's ne'er a spot in our bewildered world, 
Where God's exceeding glory shines so dim. 
But shapes are strung and hearts are warm, 
And lips are sweet from him." 

The worshipers of Ormuzd are greatly given to 
prayer. God is ever near them as the sunlight, ready 
to listen, ready to help. No doubting Tyndall has ever 
arisen among thern to suggest that there is no answer- 
ing voice. A poor bereaved soul lay all night long 
crying, *' God ! God !" And the tempter came and 
whispered, " God hath not said. Here am I !'' Then 
came the good angel Chiser, bringing to the prostrate 
mourner these words, full as a honeycomb of the 
sweetness of comfort : 

" * Go tell,' said Ormuzd, * yonder soul, now sunken in despair, 

Each *' Lord, appear," thy lips pronounce contains my " Here am I ;" 
A special messenger I send beneath thine every sigh : 
Thy love is but a girdle of the love I bear to thee; 
And sleeping in thy "Come, O Loyd !" there lies "Here, son!" 
from me.' " 

Thus far concerning the dualism of this religion. 
Around this, as its central thought, we find a cluster 
of three distinguishing marks. 



ZOROASTRIANISM, 73 

Three Characteristic Features, — Not far from the ruins 
of Persepolis towers aloft the famous rock of Behistun, 
its flinty face covered with hieroglyphics and wedge- 
shaped letters that have survived the storms and con- 
vulsions of twenty-four hundred years. Here one may 
read this proclamation : " /, Darius^ ruler of the depend- 
ent provinces^ so7i of Hystaspis, by the grace of Ormuzd 
am king. It is he that hath granted me my empire. By 
the grace of Ormuzd my people have obeyed my laws!^ 
Near by is a figure, meant to represent Darius, stand- 
ing before an altar whereon a fire is burning. Above 
the altar is a rude image of the sun. Over the king 
is a shadowy creature with wings. And at no great 
distance a struggle is represented as going on between 
the king and a griffin. From this picture let us derive 
our three characteristics of the religion of Persia — to 

wit: 

1st, Fire-zvorship ; 

2d, The Idea of Conflict ; and 
3d, The Fi'avashis, 

I. Fire-zvorship. — The disciples of Zoroaster have, 
from time immemorial, been known as fire-worshipers, 
yet they protest against the name and avow themselves 
believers in the one only God. It is probably true that 
the wisest and most devout among them, while loyal 
to the old custom of worshiping with faces turned 
toward the sun or the fire burning on the altar, regard 
these simply as emblems, and look through them and 
beyond them to Him whose heart is infinite warmth 
of love and whose word is as the brightness of light. 
The nights in Persia are clear and beautiful. The stars 



74 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

are a language which speaks to peasant and priest ahke 
of light coming out of darkness. 

" Through the forehead of eve the Lord driveth yon star as a nail, 
And the ihick-spangled darkness lets down o'er the day as a veil." 

It is little wonder, therefore, if the people of that fervid 
and poetic land, searching for a God, should imagine 
they had found him hidden within those ever-present, 
ever-mysterious, silent yet fateful veils of light. The 
sun being the centre, all the orbs of heaven are as 
ministers that wait upon him. *' We have seen his star 
in the east " was but another way of saying, ** We have 
received a mandatory word from the ineffable Throne, 
and must needs go where it leads and do whatsoever 
it bids us." ^ 

2. Conflict, — The second of the characteristics re- 
ferred to is the idea of conflict. This naturally grows 
out of the dualism of light and darkness. Like gods, 
like people. When the gleaming of the swords of 
Ormuzd and Ahriman is in the air, life grows warlike 

^ The worship of the elements was no part of the original system of 
Zoroaster. It was borrowed from Magism, the religion of ancient 
Armenia and Cappadocia. When the followers of Zoroaster, in their 
migraiions, spread over the countries lying south and west of the Caspian 
Sea, they came into contact with people who worshiped earth, air, fire 
and water, and they incorporated this religion with their own. Raw- 
linson says : " With their dualistic belief had been combined, at a time 
not much later than that of Darius Hystaspis, an entirely separate sys- 
tem, the worship of the elements. Fir-e, air, earth and water were re- 
garded as essentially holy, and to pollute any of them was a crime. 
Fire was especially to be held in honor, and it became an essential part 
of the Persian religion to maintain perpetually upon the fire-altars the 
sacred flame, supposed to have been originally kindled from heaven, 
and to see that it never went out." 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 75 

in every phase. All things are divided into twos : two 
gods, two marshaled hosts, two modes of living, two 
places of final destiny. And every man must choose. 
There is no fate. Will is of all things freest ; it is bound 
to nothing save the necessity of choice. The sufis' 
preaching is little more than a call to enlistment: 
** Who is on the Lord's side ? Choose ye this day 
whom ye will serve." There is no escaping the clash 
of arms. All things in heaven and earth are arrayed 
for battle. Ahura-Mazda summons the shining hosts 
of heaven ; twelve companies march in the twelve signs 
of the Zodiac ; the dog-star. Sura, stands sentinel at 
the bridge Chinevat, watching the abyss from which 
Ahriman shall come with his myriads of Daevae. Then 
battle ! The rolling of heaven's artillery, the swift 
gleaming of its electric lights, and blackness cover- 
ing the field ! Then light again : 

" The red dawning proclaims a victorious fight ; 
From the sword of the sun flows tlie blood of the night." 

It is thus that fervid Oriental minds set forth the 
conflict ever going on between right and wrong, the 
powers of light and darkness. The Zoroastrian en- 
tertains a profound hatred of evil ; he hates it as a 
good soldier does the banner of his foe : 

" Beneath the tiger's jaw I heard a victim cry, 

* Thank God that, though in pain, yet not in guilt I die.' " 

Loathe sin, abhor sin, go not near it, preaches the sufi : 

" Avoid an evil-doer as you would a brand, 
Which, lighted, burns ; extinguished, soils the hand." 



76 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. 

No other religion dwells with greater emphasis on the 
folly of doing evil. He who pursues a vicious course 
of life is " as one who painfully turns up the sand with 
a golden plough to sow weeds ; he mows a lignum- 
vitae forest with a scythe of glass ; he puts a jeweled 
vase on a sandal-wood fire to cook a dish of pebbles." 
The Persian hates vanity and wrong, and loves right for 
its own sake. His religion is, by eminence, a moral 
religion. Its comprehensive code is this : Pure thoughts^ 
pure words, pure deeds. Ormuzd's first law is cleanli- 
ness of body and soul. The swiftness of life is a never- 
ending theme, and with it the vanity of earthly things : 

*' I wish not for thrones and the glories of life; 
What is glory to man ? An illusion ; a cheat. 
What did it for Jemschid, the world at his feet ?" 

It was easy to ring the changes on earth's vanity 
when one stood among ruins. The saying of St. Paul, 
** We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain 
we can carry nothing out,*' is thus expressed and some- 
thing more : 

" On parent's knees, a naked new-born child, 
Weeping, thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled ; 
So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep. 
Calm, thou mayest smile while all around thee weep." 

O. less beautifully, but with even greater force, in the 
story of the poet who was called to sing at Haroun 
al-Raschid's court. Again and again he celebrated the 
caliph's praise — his valor, his conquests, his princely 
wealth — and still Al-Raschid called for a higher strain. 
Then, 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 77 

** Around that vast magnific hall one glance the poet threw 
On courtiers, king and festival, and did the strain renew : 
* And yet, and yet, shalt thou at last ]ie stretched on bed of death : 
Then when thou drawest thick and fast thy sobs with painful breath, — 
When Azrael glides through guarded gate, through hosts that camp 
around 

^ Their lord in vain, and will not wait, — when thou art sadly bound 
Unto thine house of dust alone — O king, when thou must die, 
This pomp a shadow thou must own, this glory all a lie.' " 

With such poets, preaching thoughts that breathe 
in words that burn, singing the battles of dawn and 
darkness and the praises of a virtuous hfe, the disciples 
of Zoroaster could not be otherwise than brave and 
earnest, a people of high thoughts and noble deeds. 
Their religion is the very spirit of conflict. " Endure 
hardness as a good soldier ;'' " Put on the whole armor 
of God, that ye may be able to withstand, and having 
done all to stand in the evil day." 

" Wouldst thou the honey taste while afraid of the sting of the bee ? 

Wouldst the victor's crown wear without knowing the terrible fight? 
Could the diver get pearls that repose in the depths of the sea 

If he stood on the shore, from the crocodile shrinking in fright ? 
With unfaltering toil thou must seek what the Fates have decreed 
May be won, and courageously pluck for thyself the glorious meed." 

This might almost pass for an Oriental version of " Am 
I a soldier of the cross ?" 

The Four Lazvs, — At this point we note the Four 
Laws of Zoroastrianism, which constitute its moral 
code. They are piety, purity, veracity and industry. 

(i) Piety y consisting chiefly in the worship of Ormuzd 
by repetition of the hymns and prayers of the Zend- 



78 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Avesta. The modes of worship are exceedingly- 
simple : " In early morning the congregation gathers 
under the open sky around the altar or hearth, on 
which a fire is burning. The priest sits, facing the 
fire, on a stone platform reached by three steps. To 
protect the fire from the pollution of his breath, he 
and his assistants wear a veil reaching from below the 
eyes to the chin. Rising, he begins : ' I invite to this 
ofifering, and I prepare it for, Ahura-Mazda.' "^ He 
then, with many invocations, offers to the fire food, 
flesh, milk or butter, and joins his congregation in 
drinking the sacred juice of the soma-plant.^ 

(2) Purity, This has already been referred to. The 
Zoroastrian's conception of purity is, indeed, far below 
our gospel standard, yet he professes, and his life meas- 
urably illustrates, a sincere love of "pure thoughts, 
pure words and pure deeds." ^ 

1 Faiths of the World. 

2 The '* ceremony of the soma" consisted in the extraction of the 
juice of the plant while the priest was employed in prayer, after which 
the drink-offering was solemnly dedicated to the fire, and then quaffed 
by priest and worshipers. 

^ " Outward purity had to be maintained by a multiplicity of external 
observances, forming in their entirety a burden as heavy to bear as that 
imposed by the Mosaic ceremonial law on the people of Israel. But 
inward purity was not neglected. Not only were the Iranians required 
to refrain from all impure acts, but also from impure words, and even 
from impure thoughts. Ahura-Mazda was * the pure, the Master of 
purity,' and would not tolerate less than perfect purity in his votaries." 
— Ancient Religions, p. 73. 

" The purity which was required of the Zoroastrian was of two kinds, 
moral and legal. Moral purity comprised all that Christianity includes 
under it — truth, justice, chastity and general sinlessness. It was coex- 
tensive with the whole sphere of human activity, embracing not only 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 70 

(3) Veracity, " No Persian virtue/' says Rawlinson, 
" is more praised by the ancients, perhaps none more 
astonished the cunning Greeks, than Persian truthful- 
ness, which wins at this day the high respect of Hindus 
deahng with Parsees. The most shameful thing in Per- 
sian eyes was lying.^ Debt and other faults were spe- 
cially detested for the lies required to conceal them. 
Children were taught truth-telling as they were taught 
science. Ahriman is the liar of liars. The religious 
law reckoned severely with the breaker of an engage- 
ment. Persians were very slow to take an oath, but 
the pledge of a Persian hand was like the Olympian 
oath by the Styx.'^^ 

(4) Industry, '' He who tills the ground is as good 
a servant of religion as he who presents a thousand 
holy offerings or ten thousand prayers. Arare est orare. 
' Who is the fourth that rejoices the earth with greatest 

words and acts, but even the secret thoughts of the heart. Legal 
purity was to be obtained only by the observance of a muhitude of 
trifling ceremonies and the abstinence from ten thousand acts in their 
nature wholly indifferent. Especially, everything was to be avoided 
which could be thought to pollute the four elements, all of them sacred 
to the Zoroastrian or Sassanian times — fire, water, earth and air." — Seven 
Monarchies, iii. 586. 

^ Pawlinson says : '* Druj, * falsehood,' is held up to detestation, alike 
in the Zend-Avesta and in the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, as the 
basest, the most contemptible and the most pernicious of vices." 

2 Faiths of the World, 

This ha^ ceased to be true among the modern Persians. Maurice 
says : *' Under the Mohammedan teaching, which in Turkey has cer- 
tainly been favorable to veracity, the strong sense of moral right and 
wrong which distinguished the old Persian has deserted him. He who 
was celebrated by Xenophon as above all men the speaker of truth has 
become proverbial for lying.'' 



8o THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

joy? It is he who cultivates most corn, grass and 
fruit. What is the stomach of the law ? It is sowing 
corn again and again.' " ^ The Parsees are an eminently- 
industrious people. To this may be due the fact that 
they have ever been possessed of princely wealth, and 
that at this day no beggar can be found among them.^ 

We have spoken of two characteristic features of 
Zoroastrianism — viz. Jire-zvo'ship, as indicating the 
leading thought in its theology and ritual ; and con- 
flict, as showing its conception of life's duties and re- 
sponsibilities. 

3. Tlie Fravashis. — We now come to the third, ^n\\\q}s\ 
was referred to as the Fi^avasliis. Under this head we 
consider the Persian's philosophy of the future. In 
the picture carved on the rock Behistun, representing 
Darius at the flaming altar, we saw a shadowy creature 

1 Faiths of the World. 

2 " The early Ormuzd worshipers were agriculturists, and viewed the 
cultivation of the soil as a religious duty enjoined upon them by God. 
Hence they connected the notion of piety with earth-culture, and it was 
but a step from this to make a single goddess preside over the two. It 
is as the angel of earth that Armaiti has most distinctly a personal cha- 
racter. She is regarded as wandering from spot to spot and laboring to 
convert deserts and wildernesses into fruitful fields and gardens. She 
has the agriculturist under her immediate protection, while she en- 
deavors to persuade the shepherd, who persists in the nomadic life, to 
give up his old habits and commence the cultivation of the soil. 

" Man was placed upon the earth to preserve the good creation ; and 
this could only be done by careful tilling of the soil, eradication of 
thorns and weeds, and reclamation of the tracts over which Angi'a- 
Mainyu had spread the curse of barrenness. To cultivate the soil was 
thus a religious duty ; the whole community was required to be agri- 
cultural ; and either as proprietor, as farmer or as laboring-man each 
Zoroastrian must * further the works of life ' by advancing tillage."— 
Seven Monarchies , ii. 48, 56. 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 8 1 

with Wings poised above his head. This was his Fra- 
vashi, his '' double " — his soul, if you will. The doc- 
trine of the Zend-Avesta is that all men pre-exist in 
this shadowy form — that birth embodies them ; and 
death in turn liberates the Fravashi from its fleshly 
bands. Here, therefore, is the great truth of immor- 
tality. The body dies and is carried out to the Tower 
of Silence for eagles to pluck at, but the soul, or Fra- 
vashi, lives on for ever and ever. There is to be, more- 
over, a resurrection, whereat the soul shall be reinvested 
with its earthly body, and there are to be glad reunions 
in the future world. A day is appointed for judgment 
when all must appear to render an account for the 
deeds done in the body. There is no probation after 
death ; 

" Where ends wrong-doing 
Begins long ruing." 

The bridge that leads to the dwelling-place of the pure 
is stretched across the abyss Duzaht, the awful abyss 
where Ahriman dwells. The wicked, crossing that 
narrow bridge, tremble with sense of ill-desert, throw 
up their arms in despair, fall and are lost to view. 
But those who have loved pure thoughts, pure words 
and pure deeds reach in safety the other side. The 
joys of heaven are largely in the consciousness of 
having lived aright; for it is a true saying, outside 
of all bibles, that virtue is its own reward. 

" In the nine heavens are eight paradises. 

Where is the ninth one ? In the human breast. 
Given to thee are those eight paradises 

When thou the ninth one hast within thy breast." 
6 



82 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

''What shall I Do to be Savedr—i:\i^ Zoroastrian 
has but a dim notion of forgiveness. He believes in 
it, yet for want of an atonement, having no revelation 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation* of the world, he 
must needs make it purchasable for the virtue of a 
threefold repetition of the divi7ie name. 

The Patet.—n^vQ is his "Patet," or Miserere : {a) " I 
repent, O God, of sins ! All wicked thoughts, all 
wicked words, all wicked deeds, which I have medi- 
tated in the world, corporeal or spiritual, I repent of. 
Lord, forgive, for the three words' sake !" {b) '' All 
sins against kindred, superiors and neighbors ; the de- 
filement with dirt and corpses ; the omission of reciting 
the Zend-Avesta ; what I ought to have thought, and 
did not ; v/hat I ought to have done, and did not ; 
what I ought to have spoken, and did not, — for these, 
O Lord, I repent. Forgive for the three words' sake !" 
{c) "" Of pride, haughtiness and anger ; discontent, in- 
dolence and idol-worship ; omission of the mid-day 
prayer ; theft, robbery^ unchastity ; sins which I know 
or know not, — of these repent L Lord, pardon, for the 
three words' sake !" 

In the religion of the Persians there is nothing cor- 
responding to our Christ. The light with healing in 
its beams never rose upon them. This is the one vital 
defect of the Zoroastrian system — the one joint of its 
harness whereat enters the arrow of death. Its saviour 
was but a saviour in a dream. The ancient sufis. looked 
for one whom they called Sosioch, who would put down 
Ahriman, and, breaking all chains, usher in a golden 
age of righteousness and peace. Dim indeed is this, 



ZOROASTRIANISM. 83 

yet who shall say precisely how bright must be the 
image of the great personal sacrifice ere it has power 
to save? 

It will be remembered that there was enough of light 
glimmering through the darkness of this false religion 
to lead, once upon a time, certain of its devotees to the 
feet of the Christ-child. 

" A comet dangling in the air 
Presaged the ruin both of death and sin, 
And told the wise men of a King, 
The King of glory, and the Sun 
Of Righteousness, who then begun 
To draw toward that blessed hemisphere. 
They, from the farthest East, this new 
And unknown light pursue 
Till they appear 
In this blest infant King's propitious eye, 
And pay their homage to his royalty. 

Persia might then the rising sun adore ; 
It was idolatiy no more." ^ 

The modern Parsees, indeed, reject all thought of 
forgiveness. " There is no saviour," they say ; ** a man 
must suffer the penalty of whatsoever evil he hath done. 
The only saviour is a virtuous life." Thus, standing at 
the very threshold of the truth, they enter not. Even 
the vague outlines of their own redeemer have vanished 
into air. 

The writer has purposely refrained from emphasizing 
or enlarging upon the imperfections of the Zoroastrian 
system, because, whatsoever may be its faults, there is 
no other form of religion outside of the Bible which 

1 Jeremy Taylor. 



84 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 



in pureness of doctrine, clearness of view as to the 
hereafter and beneficent influence on daily life can be 
compared with this. Let us fondly trust that many 
Magi, following the dim star of their Sosioch, have 
come ere this, with offerings of gold and myrrh and 
frankincense, into the heavenly presence of the true 
One. 

For salvation is not alone to those only who have 
abundance of the living Bread, but to such also as, 
having tasted the crumbs, are anhungered for the 
Bread. Perhaps in the following parable, by Saadi, 
there is an overweening trust in the great Father^s 
love: 



" Once as I staggered, blind, upon the brink of hell, 
Above the everlasting fire-flood's awful roar, 
God threw his heart before my feet, and, stumbling o'er 
That obstacle divine, I into heaven fell." 

But we may rest assured that if any do thus enter 
heaven, they are such as stumble while groping for 
the light. 



IV. 
BRAHMANISM. 



Origin : The Ar}^an migration into India, 
I. Sacred Books : 

(i) TheVedas. 

(2) Brahmanas. 

(3) Upanishads. 
Laws of Manu. 
Traditional Tales. 

II. Theology : 

(1) Monotheism I g^^j^^_ 

(2) Pantheism ) 

(3) Polytheism. 

The Creed; "the SLx Elements." 
III. Results: 

No Personal Responsibility. 

" Like gods, like people." 
Disti7iguishing Feature : Caste. 
*' What shall I do to be saved f Be absorbed in Brahm. 



IV. BRAHMANISM. 

Its Origin, — A race of dreamers dwelt in Central 
Asia, on the high table-lands lying east of the Caspian 
Sea, so long ago that in the endeavor to trace them 
we lose ourselves in pre-historic mists. They called 
themselves Aryans, meaning " of noble blood." From 
them as the prolific mother has descended the large 
family of Aryan or Indo-European peoples — the 
Greeks and Romans, Celts, Hindus and Anglo- 
Saxons — dreamers all, who, mourning a lost glory 
and an offended Father, have built them altars and 
porches of philosophy, and have never ceased to 
grope eagerly after truth and the Unknown God. 

Civilization of the Aryans. — As long as three thou- 
sand years ago these Aryans boasted a civilization 
scarcely inferior to that which, at the same period, 
prevailed among the Jews, who were just then pre- 
paring to float cedar trees from Lebanon for the pil- 
lars of their golden temple. They had a well-organ- 
ized government; they dwelt in comfortable houses; 
they tilled the fields, ground their barley in mills, were 
familiar with the arts of weaving and pottery, used 
gold and silver currency, drove from village to vil- 
lage in wheeled carriages, and had weapons of bronze. 
They wrote epic poems in the lunar dynasty, twelve 

87 



88 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

hundred years before the beginning of the Christian 
era. 

But what concerns us most is the fact that they were 
worshipers of the true God. The oldest of their tradi- 
tions reveal the dim outhnes of One concerning whom 
it was said, '' There is none other than He." This, 
however, was in their earliest years. There are traces 
of a slow descent into idolatry and of the struggle of 
the old religion for life — a vain struggle, that marked 
its progress with ever-multiplying fires and temples 
built in honor of the many who were mightier than 
the Unknown One. Then suddenly appeared the 
titanic figure of Zo7'oaster the Reformer. The old re- 
ligion under him renewed its strength ; the struggle 
deepened; there were two great parties now — one 
contending for the old Aryan creed, the other for the 
shrines of the gods. 

The Migration into India. — The latter were defeated ; 
retiring before the victorious hosts of Zoroaster, they 
crossed the Hindu-Kush Mountains, journeyed down 
the river-bed of the Indus, and from the north-west 
entered India. These were the progenitors of the 
Brahmans of to-day. 

Origin of Caste. — In taking possession of the land 
they were brought into conflict with native tribes 
dwelling among the hills and tangled forests, who, 
after a stubborn resistance, at length yielded to their 
superior might. The victors set themselves at once 
over all as a superior order, the vanquished taking a 
subordinate place ; and here was the beginning of that 
iron-banded system of caste which has prevailed in 



BRAHMANISM. 89 

India for thirty centuries, repressing the best energies 
of that land as did the mountain pressing on the heart 
of the fabulous Typhon. 

The Brahmans, — No sooner had they secured the 
highest place by right of conquest than they proceeded 
to make their tenure sure by religious sanctions. A 
fable was invented declaring that when Brahm created 
the human race the Brahman sprang from his head ; the 
Kshatriya, or soldier caste, from his breast ; the Vaisya, 
or merchant caste, from his loins ; and the Sudra, or 
laboring caste, from his feet.^ This fable gave to the 
Brahmans a sacred pre-eminence — a right to hold them- 
selves aloof from common mortals and to be called 
after the name of the unseen Brahm. They are the 
priests of the Hindu religion, conducting its multitu- 
dinous rites and ceremonies, and alone endowed with 
the privilege of reading its sacred books. They cast 
the horoscope at the birth of every child, whisper the 
mantras or mysterious words, preside at the betrothal 
and mutter incantations in the dying hour. They are 
mediators between heaven and earth, themselves wor- 
shiped as demigods. Cursed indeed is the man who is 
cursed of a Brahman, and thrice blessed if but a Brah- 
man's shadow fall upon him. 

^ ** With Purusha as victim they performed 
A sacrifice. When they divided him, 
How did they cut him up ? What was his mouth ? 
What were his arms ; and what his thighs and feet ? 
The Brahman was his mouth; the kingly soldier 
Was made his arms ; the husbandman his thighs ; 
The servile Sudra issued from his feet." 

MoNiER Williams's Hinduism, p. 31. 



go THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

It is not strange, these things being considered, that 
the Brahman is famed for an intense self-consciousness, 
walking erect with ** a proud conviction of superiority 
depicted on every feature." ^ In the Laws of Manu it 
is asserted that '* a Brahman, by reason of his high 
birth, is an object of veneration even to the gods." 
In the Mahabharata, the most beautiful of Hindu epics, 
occurs this passage in a vivid description of a tourna- 
ment : 

" With the noise of the musical instruments and the eager cries of the 

lookers-on, 
A din arose like the roaring of the sea; 

When, lo ! wearing his white raiment and the sacrificial cord, 
With snowy hair and silvery beard and the white garland around his 

brows, 
Into the midst of the arena slowly walked the Brahman, 
Like the sun in a cloudless sky." 

These distinctions, rock-rooted by centuries of ob- 
servance, are practically inviolable. Crossing the line 
is not so much as dreamed of.^ To lose caste is to 

^ " Light of complexion, his forehead ample, his countenance of 
striking significance, his lips thin and mouth expressive, his eyes quick 
and sharp, his fingers long, his carriage noble and almost sublime, the 
true Brahman, uncontaminated by European influence and manners, 
with his intense self-consciousness, with the proud conviction of supe- 
riority depicted in every muscle of his face and manifest in every move- 
ment of his body, is a wonderful specimen of humanity walking on 
God's earth." — From Sherring's Hindu Tribes and Castes. 

Rev. Narayan Sheshadrai said, in the Madison Avenue Church in 
New York in 1873 : " I was taught as a Brahman to believe that I was 
a god on earth, a compound of the proudest assumptions and meanest 
humiliations." 

2 " In point of fact, strictness in the maintenance of caste is the only 
real test of Hinduism exacted by the Brahmans of the present day. 



BRAHMANISM, 9 1 

be doomed to wander, like the unburied Greeks, in 
darkness for ever. Imagine how repressive such a 
system must be on the advancement of a nation. For 
national life is but another name for the heart- throbbing 
and struggling of the lower classes to rise. But in 
India there is no possibility of rising. And India will 
always be a dependency. Ambition is dead there. To 
be born a Sudra is to be chained for life to treadmill 
duties and to the companionship of other Sudras or 
base ones. The water-carriers and scavengers of Bom- 
bay are the descendants of those who carried water 
and cleaned the streets of Bombay as far back as run- 
neth the memory of man. Society is a ladder indeed, 
but there is no climbing it. What, then, remains for 
India, grown old in her conventional bondage? Is 
there no hope ? Not in Brahmanism, The forger of 
chains can scarcely be expected to enact the role of 
liberator. Caste is the strong citadel of the religion of 
Brahm, 

The Central Thought, — Let us emphasize that fact 
as indicating its most characteristic feature. It is 
by eminence the religion of caste^ of priestcraft, of 
the elect few, and, logically, the religion of social and 

In matters of mere faith Hinduism is all-tolerant and all-receptive. No 
person who is not born a Brahman can become one, but any person can 
be admitted into the lower ranks of Hinduism who will acknowledge 
the supremacy of the Brahmans and obey rules of caste. So long as a 
man holds to his caste he is at liberty to hold any opinions he likes, even 
to accepting the doctrines of Christianity. 

* Perfection is alone attained by him 
Who swerves not from the business of his caste.' ^' 

Hinduism^ p. 151. 



92 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

political stagnation ; its genius, an unyielding pride 
of aristocracy, an influence as blighting as the finger 
of death. 

In considering the character of this religion let us 
look first at its sacred books ; second, at its theology ; 
and third, at its morality and practical results. 

I. Sacred Books. — The sacred literature of the Hin- 
dus consists of the Vedas, the Brahmanas and the 
Upanishads ; in addition to which there are commen- 
taries without number, law-books, litanies, and inter- 
minable legendary poems. These are all in Sanskrit, 
which is called "the perfect tongue." 

(i) The Vedas. — The word "veda" means knowl- 
edge. It is akin to the Greek o?(J«, Latin video^ Ger- 
man wissen^ English wit. The Vedas are said to have 
issued like breath from the self-existent Deity. They 
are four in number, to wit: 

1. The Rig- Veda, from ric, to praise. This is the 
Brahman's bible and hymn-book combined. It con- 
sists of ten hundred and twenty-eight hymns or invo- 
cations, chiefly addressed to Brahm and the lesser 
gods. 

2. The Sama-Veda, or Book of Penitential Chants. 

3. The Yagur-Veda, or Book of Sacrificial Rites. 

4. The Atharva-Veda, or Book of Magical Spells 
and Incantations. 

Not all of the poetical effusions in the Vedas are 
what we would call religious ; the following, entitled 
" Every One to his Taste," will serve as an illustration: 

" Men's tastes and trades are multifarious, 
And so their ends and aims are various. 



BRAHMANISM. 93 

The smith seeks something cracked to mend; 

The doctor would have sick to tend ; 

The priest desires a devotee 

From vi^hom he may extract a fee. 

Each craftsman makes and vends his ware, 

And hopes the rich man's gold to share. 

My sire's a doctor; I a bard; 

Corn grinds my mother, toiling hard. 

All craving wealth, we each pursue 

By different means the end in view, 

Like people running after cows 

Which too far off have strayed to browse. 

The draught-horse seeks an easy yoke ; 

The merry dearly like a joke; 

Of lovers youthful belles are fond ; 

And thirsty frogs desire a pond.'^ ^ 

(2) The Brahmanas are in the form of appendices to 
the Vedas. They consist chiefly of ritualistic precepts 
and comments on the Vedic hymns. The following 
will serve as an illustration ; it sets forth the remark- 
able idea that the gods were mortal until, by meritori- 
ous deeds, they extorted immortality from the Supreme 
Being : 

" The gods lived constantly in fear of Death, 
The mighty Ender; so with toilsome rites 
They worshiped and repeated sacrifices 
Till they became immortal. Then the Ender 
Said to the gods, * As ye have made yourselves 
Imperishable, so will men endeavor 
To free themselves from me; what portion then 
Shall I possess in man ?' The gods replied, 
* Henceforth no being shall become immortal 
In his own body ; this his mortal frame 
Shalt thou still seize ; this shall remain thine own. 
He who, through knowledge or religious acts. 
Henceforth attains to immortality 
Shall first present his body, Death, to thee.' " ' 
1 MuiR. 2 Williams. 



94 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

(3) Tlie Upanishads (meaning " beneath the surface") 
are also appendices to the Vedas. They consist of 
mystical speculations touching the Deity, the origin 
of the universe, the nature of the human soul and kin- 
dred themes. 

In addition to the foregoing there are certain writ- 
ings called Srnriti^ or Traditions, which are regarded 
as scarcely less sacred than the Vedas themselves. 
Among these must be particularly noted the Laws 
of Manu, consisting of twelve books of precepts hav- 
ing reference particularly to the maintenance of the 
custom of caste,^ and the Bhakti-sastras, or Mytholog- 
ical Tales. 

^ " It will be found that, after eliminating the purely religious and 
philosophical precepts, the greater number of its rules fall under the 
four following heads : 

"I. /^<:«r<2, * immemorial practices.' These include all the observ- 
ances of caste, regarded as constituting the highest law and highest 
religion. 

" 2. Vyavahara^ * practices of law and government,' embracing the 
procedure of legal tribunals, rules of judicature and civil and criminal 
law. 

" 3. Prayas-citta^ * penitential exercises,' comprehending rules of ex- 
piation. 

" 4. Karma-phala^ * consequences of acts,' especially as involving re- 
peated births through numberless existences until the attainment of final 
beatitude." — Hinduism, p. 55. 

"A few specimens of Manu's moral precepts are here subjoined: 

* Daily perform thine own appointed work 
Unweariedly ; and to obtain a friend — 
A sure companion to the future world — 
Collect a store of virtue like the ants, 
Who garner up their treasures into heaps ; 



BRAHMANISM. 95 

It is impossible to determine the precise date of these 
sacred books. If you ask a Brahman, he will gravely 
inform you that some of them were written more than 
two million years ago. Max Miiller, in his Ancient 
Sanskrit Literature^ places the oldest of the Vedic 
writings at about 1200 b. c. Professor Monier Wil- 
liams says : ** We may be justified in assuming that 
the hymns of the Veda were probably composed by a 
succession of poets at different dates between 1500 and 
1000 years b. c." The hymns of the Rig-Veda are 
therefore older than the Psalms of David. They are 
marked by a beautiful simplicity of diction. Here is a 
prayer addressed to Agni, god of fire, who was known 
later on as Vishnu ; the worshiper, rubbing together 

For neither father, mother, wife nor son, 
Nor kinsman, will remain beside thee then, 
When thou art passing to that other home : 
Thy virtue will thine only comrade be. 

* Single is every living creature born ; 
Single he passes to another world ; 
Single he eats the fruits of evil deeds ; 
Single, the fruit of good ; and when he leaves 
His body like a log or heap of clay 

Upon the ground, his kinsmen walk away : 

Virtue alone stays by him at the tomb, 

And bears him through the dreary trackless gloom. 

* Depend not on another, rather lean 
Upon thyself; trust to thine own exertions. 
Subjection to another's will gives pain ; 
True happiness consists in self-reliance. 

* Strive to complete the task thou hast commenced ; 
Wearied, renew thy efforts once again ; 

Again fatigued, once more the work begin ; 

So shalt thou earn success and fortune win.' " — Iliuduism, p. 69. 



96 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

two pieces of wood, father and mother of the flame, 
until they glow, exclaims : 

" O Agni, accept my service : listen to my song. 

"With this wood I worship thee, Agni, son of strength and conqueror 
of horses ! 

" Let thy servants serve thee with songs, O Agni, giver of riches, who 
delightest in riches and lovest songs. 

*' O youngest of the gods and best deserving of worship, come at our 
praise, perform thou the sacrifice, sit down upon this sacred grass." ^ 

The Rig- Veda is the most ancient and incomparably 
the most perfect of the sacred books. The other Vedas 
are more voluminous, making in all eleven huge octavos. 

^ " I would not wrest to any fanciful resemblance the points of like- 
ness between this ancient divinity (Agni) and the later avatars of Indian 
and Christian creeds ; but it is evident the god stands ready to take the 
part afterward given to Vishnu. And whether or no we choose to con- 
sider that the ideals which Vishnu, and still more Christ, express are 
implanted in human nature, it is evident that, without passing beyond 
his legitimate functions as a nature-god, Agni is able to realize some 
of the qualities of such an ideal. He is incarnate after a fashion, being 
born of the wood ; he is, in a peculiar sense, the friend of man ; he is 
the messenger and mediator between heaven and earth ; and lastly, he 
is in a special manner the Holy One, the fosterer of strong emotion, 
of those mystic thoughts which arise when in any way the mind is 
violently swayed. Agni is all this without laying aside the elemental 
nature in which he is clothed ; 

* Agni is messenger of all the world. 
Skyward ascends his flame, the Merciful, 
With our libations watered well ; 

And now the red smoke seeks the heavenly way, 
And men enkindle Agni here. 

* We make of thee our herald. Holy One ; 
Bring down the gods unto our feast. 

O son of might, and all who nourish man ! 
Pardon us when on thee we call.' '* 

Keary's Outlines of Primitive Beliefs p. 103. 



BRAHMANISM. 9/ 

The supplements are numberless and endless. There 
are one hundred thousand verses in the Ramayana 
alone. Sir William Jones says : " Wherever we direct 
our attention to Hindu literature the notion of infinity 
is forced upon us. The longest life would not suffice 
for a single perusal of works that rise and swell, pro- 
tuberant like the Himalayas, above the bulkiest com- 
positions of every land.'' 

As to the character of these writings, we may safely 
accept the judgment of Max Miiller, who is probably 
more familiar with them than any other scholar except 
among the pundits. He says, in a word, they are " full 
of pedantry, shallow and insipid grandiloquence and 
priestly conceit.'' There are tales, proverbs, incanta- 
tions, wise maxims, disquisitions on science, songs ad- 
dressed to gods and harlots, — everything except the 
hopes and promises which the soul has reason to look 
for in religion. 

** How pitying Vishnu came from heaven, and as a peasant-boy 
With merry pranks filled all the cowherd lads and maids with joy; 
The wondrous things he said and did while mortal men among, — 
All this has saintly Shukadev in the Brem-Sagar sung." 

In ^^Laws of Manu, the Hindu book of morals and 
jurisprudence, are thousands of precepts like these: 
'* If a man desire long life, he should eat with his face 
turned to the east; if prosperity, to the west; if truth 
and its rewards, to the north;" "When a student is 
about to read the Vedas he must perform an ablution, 
compose his limbs and put on a clean vest ;" " When- 
ever a Brahman begins or ends a lecture on the Veda 
he must pronounce to himself the syllable A?i7u, for 

7 



98 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

unless the syllable Auin precede and follow, his learn- 
ing will slip away from him ;" *' The name of a woman 
should be clear and soft, captivating the fancy, auspi- 
cious, ending in long vowels and sounding like a bene- 
diction." It is sad to think of two hundred millions of 
immortal souls walking by the light of a bible like this. 

11. Theology, — We turn now to the theology of 
Brahmanism ; that is, its belief concerning God and 
eternal things. 

(i) One God. — In the original faith of the Aryans, be- 
fore they crossed the mountains into India, there was 
one Stiprenie Gody whom they called Dians, from the root 
diu, " to shine " — the Shining One. There are invoca- 
tions in the Rig- Veda addressed to Diaus-pitar^ whom 
we at once identify with the Greek Zvjf^-TzArr^p and the 
Latin Jupiter ; and in all these languages it means 
the same — Heaven-Father. Our hearts are strangely 
moved and warmed at mention of that most sacred 
name occurring thus in the primeval worship of the 
Aryans — Our Father which art in heaven. 

There are not a few hymns in the oldest Vedas which 
point clearly to the unity of God, such as the following : 

" What god shall we adore with sacrifice ? 
Him let us praise, the golden Child that rose 
In the beginning, who was born the lord, 
The one sole lord of all that is — who made 
The earth and formed the sky, who giveth life, 
Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere, 
Whose hiding-place is immortality. 
Whose shadow death ; who by his might is King 
Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world. 
Where'er, let loose in space, the mighty waters 
Have gone, depositing a fruitful seed 



BRAHMANISM, 99 

And generating fire, there He arose 

Who is the breath and life of all the gods. 

Whose mighty glance looks round the vast expanse 

Of watery vapor — source of energy, 

Cause of the sacrifice, the only God 

Above the gods/' ^ 

Or the following : 

" He is the only master of the world ; he fills heaven 
and earth. He gives life and strength ; all the other 
gods seek for his blessing ; death and immortality are 
but his shadow. 

" The mountains covered with frost, the ocean with 
its waves, the vast regions of heaven, proclaim his 
power. 

" Heaven and earth tremble for fear before him. He 
is God above all gods." ^ 

But this Supreme One was conceived of as afar 
off — " Para-Brahm," a god too distant to be worshiped. 
" He is," says one of the sages, " neither the known nor 
the unknown. That which cannot be expressed by words, 
that which cannot be conceived by the mind, that which 
cannot be seen with the eyes, — that is Brahm ;" ** His 
spirit is divinely calm, his mind supernal ;" " He is with- 
out size, quality, character or division ;" " The wise man 
contemplates him as the Spirit who resembles space ;" 
** He is like one asleep." So Krishna says : *' The 
works of the universe confine me not ; I am like one 
who sitteth aloof, taking no interest in earthly things." 

(2) Pantheism. — Between this conception of God and 
Pantheism there was obviously but a single step, and 

* MONIER Williams. ^ Quack enbos, Ancient Literature, 



lOO THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

that step was early and easily taken, as we should ex- 
pect of a speculative people dwelling above the moun- 
tains in an atmosphere burdened with the spirit of 
dreams. The religious teachers soon came to regard 
Bralnn as '' the one eternal, absolute, unchangeable 
Being, who unfolds himself into the universe as 
Creator and created, becoming in turn ether, air, fire, 
water and earth." They represented him as saying, 
*^ I am the light in the sun and moon ; I am the bril- 
liancy in flame, the radiance in all shining things, the 
light in all lights, the sound in air, the fragrance in 
earth, the eternal seed of all things that exist, the life 
in all ; I am the goodness of the good ; I am the be- 
ginning, middle, end, the eternal in time, the birth and 
death of all." ^ This led to the important formula, 
Ekavt eva advitiyain — " There is only One, and there 
is nothing beside him ;" that is, nothing really exists 
except Brahm. All things else are niaya or illusion.^ 

1 Dr. Caird. 

' " To men conscious of sin and apprehensive of a coming retribu- 
tion any system will stand commended which minifies or denies re- 
sponsibility. This Hinduism does on the basis of three propositions — 
viz. that there is no essential distinction between the soul and God ; that 
there is no such thing as free agency ; and, consequently, no necessary 
and permanent distinction between sin and righteousness. Such doc- 
trines cannot indeed heal, but they are most effectual to narcotize the 
conscience. They dull and ease the acuter pangs of remorse and deaden 
the sense of need of a Saviour. A system which, like Hinduism, is as 
an opiate to the pain of sin must needs stand strong in the faith of its 
votaries. Also, again, the doctrine of niaya, or illusion, does much to 
make the Hindu position inexpugnable. To deny or doubt the affir- 
mations of consciousness — e. g. as to freedom, personality, responsi- 
bility — were to render the very foundations of human knowledge more 
uncertain than sand. AYith us, here is the ultimate appeal in all argu- 



BRAHMANISM, lOI 

The souls of men are emanations of Brahm, the uni- 
versal self-existent soul ; they are as " sparks from his 
central fire, separated for a time to be absorbed at last." 
The life and actions of men are " as the illusory phan- 
toms and appearances which a conjurer calls up and 
the gaping crowd mistake for realities, or as the per- 
sonages, scenes, events of a troubled dream." ^ One 
of the Brahman's proverbs is, " Our life is as a drop 
that trembles on the lotus-leaf, fleeting and quickly 
gone." The consummation of all best wishes and 
highest ambitions is to be thus exhaled into Brahm, 

ment and end of all strife. But the Hindu, by denying the dicta of 
consciousness and affirming this doctrine of illusion, places himself at 
once beyond the reach of argument. Every missionary knows to his 
sorrow how, at the last, his adversary will always bring forth maya as a 
sufficient answer to any argument and an adequate solution of every 
difficulty. From this panoply of illusion the keenest arguments glance 
off like feather-shafts from a coat of mail. Still further, it is impossible 
that a man who has been brought to doubt the testimony of his own 
consciousness should be otherwise than indifferent to the truth. If the 
doctrine of maya be admitted, the distinction between truth and error 
vanishes into thin air. If all is error, then there is no room for truth. 
Truth is but a mere phantom which is not worth the chasing. All 
things are equally true or equally false as you please to take it. Hence, 
argues the Hindu always, all religions are alike true and from God. 
Christianity is true ; so also is Hinduism, Mohammedanism and every 
other religion. There is only the difference of a name; and if this be 
so, why should a man forsake the cult of his fathers only to bring 
trouble and ruin on himself? It is plain that no temper of mind could 
well be more unfavorable to the reception of the truth than this. To a 
man who has come under the deadly influence of this doctrine of maya 
all argument, on whatsoever subject, becomes a mere logomachy. It is 
like the play of fencers, which has no other object than to display the 
agility and skill of the fencer.*' — Dr. S. H. Kellogg, in Princeton 
Review. 
1 Dr. Caird. 



I02 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to be absorbed in the Infinite One.^ In the Rig- Veda 
it is written, 

*' The embodied spirit has a thousand heads, 
A thousand eyes, a thousand feet, around 
On every side enveloping the earth, 
Yet filling space no longer than a span. 
He is himself this veiy universe; 
He is whatever is, has been and shall be ; 
He is the lord of immortality. 
All creatures are one-fourth of him ; three-fourths 
Are that which is immortal in the sky." ^ 

Polytheism, — Philosophers may dream thus, but, 
manifestly, human souls burdened with toil, sorrow 
and guilt must have a god nearer than Brahm. The 
descent from Pantheism to Polytheism is by easy 
stages ; for if God be everything, then everything is 
God ; if Brahm be asleep, why should we utter our 
prayers before him? if he be afar off and invisible, 
here are trees, rivers, living creatures at hand ; as we 
must worship, let us worship these. There are said to 
be three hundred and thirty millions of divinities in 
the Hindu pantheon, chiefly personifications of the 
forces and phenomena of nature. These are all re- 

^ " Their doctrine is, that the one sole, self-existing Supreme Self, 
the only really existing Essence, the one eternal Germ of all things, 
delights in infinite expansion, in infinite manifestations of itself, in in- 
finite creation, dissolution and re-creation through infinite vaiieties and 
diversities of operation. The very name * Brahman ' (neut. from root 
brih, * to grow') given to the eternal Essence is expressive of this 
growth, this expansion, this universal development and diff"usion. 
Hence all visible form is an emanation from God.'' — Hinduism^ 
p. 86. 

' Williams. 



BRAHMA NISM. IO3 

garded as manifestations and representatives of the 
Supreme One.^ 

" Into the bosom of the one great sea 
Flow streams that come from hills on every side : 
Their names are various as their springs.'* 

The Trimurti, — In the catalogue of Hindu gods we 
must begin by naming the great Trhmirti, or triad, con- 
sisting of Agni, Indra and Surya, personifications re- 
spectively of fire, storm and sunlight. These three in 
process of time came to be identified with Brahma, 
Siva and Vishnu.^ The symbol of the triad thus 

^ " To account for its polytheism, idol- worship and system of caste 
distinctions popular Hinduism supposes that the one Supreme Being 
amuses himself by illusory appearances; that he manifests himself 
variously, as light does in the rainbow; and that all visible and ma- 
terial objects, good and bad, including gods, demons, demigods, good 
and evil spirits, human beings and animals, are emanations from him, 
and are ultimately to be reabsorbed into his essence.'* — Hinduism, p. 12. 

2 ** The pantheon of the early Hindus was thus developed : In the 
beginning was Brahma, sole and self-existent. He willed to create 
various creatures out of his own substance. Accordingly, by meditation 
he produced the waters ; into them he put a seed which developed a 
golden t.g^, and from that ^^g he was born. But as the people did not 
abandon their worship of the old gods to take up with any such abstrac- 
tion, the priests, with singular tact, incorporated the most popular of 
these divinities with Brahma, and so the triad was formed — Brahma 
(the Creator of all things), Vishnu (the Preserver, who underwent ten 
avataras, or incarnations, to deliver the people from the tyranny of as 
many wicked princes) — and Siva (the Destroyer). Here was no trinity, 
for there was no unity, but a triad — three co-ordinate deities." — Rev. 
S. M. Jackson, in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia. 

" It is usual to describe these three gods as Creator, Preserver and 
Destroyer, but this gives a very inadequate idea of their complex cha- 
racters. Nor does the conception of their relationship to each other 
become clearer when it is ascertained that their functions are con- 
stantly interchangeable, and that each may take the place of the other, 



104 ^^^^ RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

constituted is the triangle, and it is typified by the mys- 
terious syllable Aicm, 

according to the sentiment expressed by the greatest of Indian poets, 
Kalidasa : 

* In those three persons the one God was shown — 
Each first in place, each last — not one alone ; 
Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be 
First, second, third among the blessed three.' " 

Hindjiism, p. 87. 

The following hymn to the Vedic Triad has a remote likeness to our 
Christian doxology: 

" Indra, twin-brother of the god of fire ! 
When thou wast born, thy mother Aditi 
Gave thee, her lusty child, the thrilling draught 
Of mountain-growing soma — source of life 
And never-dying vigor to thy frame. 
Thou art our guardian, advocate and friend, 
A brother, father, mother, all combined. 
Most fatherly of fathers, we are thine 
And thou art ours. Oh let thy pitying soul 
Turn to us in compassion when we praise thee. 
And slay us not for one sin or for many. 
Deliver us to-day, to-morrow, every day. 
Vainly the demon dares thy might ; in vain 
Strives to deprive us of thy watery treasures. 
Earth quakes beneath the crashing of thy bolts. 
Pierced, shattered, lies the foe, his cities crushed, 
His armies overthrown, his fortresses 
Shivered to fragments ; then the pent-up waters. 
Released from long imprisonment, descend 
In torrents to the earth, and swollen rivers. 
Foaming and rolling to their ocean home. 
Proclaim the triumph of the Thunderer. 

" Agni, thou art a sage, a priest, a king, 
Protector, father of the sacrifice. 
Commissioned by us men, thou dost ascend 
A messenger, conveying to the sky 



BRAHMANISM. IO5 

The first member of the triad, Brahma, is a personifi- 
cation of Brahm, the divine essence. 

The second, '' the three-eyed, thousand-named Siva," 
is the god who presides over the convulsions of nature. 
His image is adorned with a necklace of human skulls. 
He craves blood, the blood of children, of widows and 
slaves. 

Our hymns and offerings. Though thy origin 

Be threefold, now from air and now from water, 

Now from the mystic double Arani, 

Thou art thyself a mighty god, a lord, 

Giver of life and immortality, 

One in thy essence, but to mortals three; 

Displaying thine eternal triple form 

As fire on earth, as lightning in the air. 

As sun in heaven. Thou art the cherished guest 

In every household — father, brother, son. 

Friend, benefactor, guardian, all in one. 

Deliver, mighty lord, thy worshipers ; 

Purge us from taint of sin, and when we die 

Deal mercifully with us on the pyre. 

Burning our bodies with their load of guilt, 

But bearing our eternal part on high 

To luminous abodes and realms of bliss, 

For ever there to dwell with righteous men. 

" Behold the rays of dawn, like heralds, lead on high 
SURYA, that men may see the great all-knowing god. 
The stars slink off like thieves in company with night 
Before the all -seeing eye, whose beams reveal his presence, 
Gleaming like brilliant flames, to nation after nation. 
Surya, with flaming locks, clear-sighted god of day ! 
Thy seven ruddy mares bear on thy rushing car. 
With these, thy self-yoked steeds, seven daughters of thy chariot, 
Onward thou dost advance. To thy refulgent orb, 
Beyond this lower gloom and upward to the light, 
Would we ascend, O Sun, thou god among the gods." 

Hinduism f pp. 28-30. 



I06 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

The third, Vishnu, is the great helper. He is wor- 
shiped as the day-god. With three steps he measures 
the heavens — sunrise, noon and sunset. Once and 
again has he come upon earth to save it from the ruth- 
less hands of Siva. These descents are known as 
avatars^ or incarnations. Nine avatars are celebrated 
in epic verse ; the tenth, still future, is to usher in the 
golden age. 

Soma. — Next in order after the triad is the god 
Soma. This is a deification of the fermented juice 
of the moon-plant,^ and is adored as the giver of 
strength. The worshiper, taking from his lips the 
emptied cup, sings, 

" We've quaffed the soma bright, 

And are immortal grown ; 
We've entered into light, 

And all the gods have known. 
What mortal now can harm 

Or foeman vex us more ? 
Through thee, beyond alarm, 

Immortal god! we soar." 

Gunga. — We must not omit, moreover, the goddess 
Gunga, a divine personification of the river Ganges, 
'' born on the snow-capped ranges of the Himalayas 
from the forehead of Brahm.'' To follow the Ganges 
on foot from its mouth to its source is regarded as an 

^ " Asdepias acida is the botanical name of this plant. From its 
juice can be concocted an alcoholic drink which was much cherished 
by the Indians and Persians (by the latter called ko7na), and which 
played an important part in their ritual. The soma- drink was a sacra- 
mental draught, and as such corresponded to the mystic millet-water 
of the Eleusinian celebrations." — Keary's Outlines of Primitive Be- 
lief, p. 102. 



BRAHMANISM, IO7 

act of special merit. The pilgrimage requires about 
six years.^ 

1 " As the Ganges was the most majestic, so it soon became the holiest 
and most revered, of all rivers. No sin vi^as too heinous to be removed, 
no character too black to be washed clean, by its waters. Hence the 
countless temples with flights of steps lining its banks ; hence the array 
of priests called * Sons of the Ganges ' sitting on the edge of its 
streams, ready to aid the ablutions of conscience-stricken bathers and 
stamp them as white-washed when they emerge from its waters. Hence 
also the constant traffic carried on in transporting Ganges-water in small 
bottles to all parts of the country." — Hinduism, p. 172. 

THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES. 

[Fron the Ramdyana, by the poet Valmiki.) 
** From the high heaven burst Ganges forth, first on Siva's lofty crown ; 
Headlong then, and prone to earth, thundering rushed the cataract 

down. 
Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing ; turtles, dolphins, in their 

mirth, 
Fallen or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth ; 
And all the hosts of heaven came down, sprites and genii, in amaze. 
And each forsook his heavenly throne upon that glorious scene to gaze. 
On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and couriers 

rode. 
Or on soft-swinging palanquin lay wondering, each observant god. 
As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jeweled vestures* 

rays. 
The coruscating ether glowed as with a hundred suns ablaze. 
And in ten thousand sparkles bright and flashing up the cloudy spray. 
The snowy-flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at play. 
And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets 

wound ; 
Then lake-like spread, all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed 

around ; 
Then 'neatli the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the 

boiling tide; 
Then stream with stream, harmonious blending, swell bubbling up 

or smooth subside. 



I08 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Gods Many. — After these come the sacred cows, 
typifying the all-yielding earth, and worshiped by 
pouring oil upon their feet and water upon their 
horns.^ Then stars, serpents, monkeys, stones, trees. 
There is a tree whereof the trunk is said to represent 
one of the great gods, and every branch and twig and 
leaf an inferior one. Nature is ransacked for gods, 
and, nature being exhausted, men with elephants' 
heads are conjured up, and images of all imaginable 
grotesque and uncouth shapes. These are India's 
gods. 

The Creed. — The creed of Brahmanism is briefly set 
forth in '' The Six Elements," which are as follows : 

1st, The soul is sempiternal ; that is, pre-existent and 
immortal. 

2d. The substance or matter out of which the uni- 
verse has been evolved is sempiternal. 

3d. The soul can only act when it is invested with a 
bodily form and united with mind. 

4th. This union of soul and body is bondage and 
productive only of misery. 

5th. The law of consequences requires that the soul 
shall pass through various forms of life, wherein it re- 
ceives its just apportionment of suffering and reward. 

6th. This transmigration of the soul through a sue- 
By that heaven-welling water's breast the genii and the sages stood; 
Its sanctifying dews they blessed, and plunged within the lustral flood." 

— MiLMAN. 

^ " When a Brahman is dying, though he may have prayed ten hours 
daily, yet all his friends can do is to clasp his hands abottt the tail of a 
cow. The man cries in hopelessness of uncertainty, * Where am I 
going?' " — Homiletical Review, July? 1S85. 



BRAHMANISM. IO9 

cession of bodies must continue until all personality is 
at length merged and absorbed in the Universal Soul. 

It is plain that the Brahmans believe in immortality, 
but not in ever-conscious being. Death is an end of 
consciousness to such as are prepared for it. At the 
open grave they sing : 

" Approach thou now the lap of earth, thy mother. 
The wide- extending earth, the ever-kindly; 
A maiden soft as wool to him who comes with gifts, 
She shall protect thee from destruction's besom.'* ^ 

They dream not of a resurrection. In their philosophy 

iTHE DIVINE SONG. 
[From the Mdhdbhdrafa, by the poet Vyasa.^ 
The Deity addresses the warrior Bharata on the eve of battle, assur- 
ing him of the immortality of the soul : 

" The soul, within its mortal frame, glides on through childhood, youth 
and age ; 
Then, in another form renewed, renews its stated course again. 
All indestructible is He that spread the living universe; 
And who is he that shall destroy the work of the Indestructible ? 
Corruptible these bodies are that wrap the everlasting soul — 
The eternal, unimaginable soul. Whence on to battle, Bharata ! 
For he that thinks to slay the soul or he that thinks the soul is slain 
Are fondly both alike deceived : it is not slain — it slayeth not ; 
It is not born — it doth not die ; past, present, future, knows it not ; 
Ancient, eternal and unchanged, it dies not with the dying frame. 
Who knows it incorruptible and everlasting and unborn, 
What heeds he whether he may slay or fall himself in battle slain ? 
As their old garments men cast off, anon new raiment to assume, 
So casts the soul its worn-out frame and takes at once another form. 
The weapon cannot pierce it through, nor wastes it the consuming fire; 
The liquid waters melt it not, nor dries it up the parching wind ; 
Impenetrable and unburned, impermeable and undried, 
Perpetual, ever-wandering, firm, indissoluble, permanent, 
Invisible, unspeakable." — MiLMAN. 



no THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. 

there is nothing corresponding to the Christian's heaven 
— no Father's house, no future recognition, no " knitting 
severed friendships up." Their supreme hope is to pass 
as rapidly as possible from one form of hfe into another 
until finally absorbed in that infinite Nothing which 
they call Brahm or the all-pervading Soul. 

Salvation. — They believe in salvation, but from what? 
From sin or spiritual death ? No, indeed. They look 
for a deliverance from life itself; that is, from self-con- 
scious being, for being is the sum-total of evils. To 
escape from self, to lose personality by being merged 
in Brahm, — this is salvation. 

" Thou that would' st find the lost One, lose thyself: 
Nothing but self thyself from him divides." 

They call it apavarga^ to be swallowed up, like a par- 
ticle of water exhaled by the sun's rays, floating in 
vapor, falling again as a raindrop into the sea. 

" What shall I Do to be Saved f''— How is this ab- 
sorption to be accomplished ? In other words. What 
is the Brahman's " plan of salvation " ? 

It is twofold, theoretically. 

First, bhakti, or '* salvation by faith." This is only 
for the select few. The word " faith " must be under- 
stood as meaning an absolute belief in the most ex- 
travagant miracles and legendary tales, an unreasoning 
assent to everything in the Vedas however preposter- 
ous, and an unreserved yielding up of self to the con- 
templation of Brahm. 

Second, kanna^ or *' salvation by works." This is 
for the great multitude, who cannot conceive of religion 



BRAHMANISM. 1 1 1 

except as a process of merit-making. For them deliv- 
erance is bought by pious acts of prayer, austerity and 
sacrifice. 

In fact, however, the adherents of this religion are 
all believers in the efficacy of works. The " faith " of 
the Brahman is itself pre-eminently a meritorious work. 
He hopes for deliverance by bathing in the Ganges, 
eating clarified butter, holding the breath while read- 
ing a set portion of the Vedas, quaflSng the dust raised 
by the hoofs of sacred cows, repeating over and over 
again the mystic syllable Aum or keeping the mind in 
fixed contemplation of Brahm. The most meritorious 
prayer in the Hindu ritual is called Gayatriy and is as 
follows : 



" Let us in silent adoration yearn 
After the Deity, the radiant Sun 
Who all illumes and who all creates, 
From whom all come, to whom all must return, 
Whom we invoke to guide our minds and feet 
In our slow progress toward his heavenly seat." 



Those who aspire to great sanctity are accustomed to 
repeat this prayer as many as a hundred and twenty- 
eight times at each of the daily periods of devotion, 
morning, noon and sunset. 

The Twice-born Yogi. — If you would discover a 
Hindu saint, you must search by the roadside. You 
will find him there, crouching upon his knees, naked, 
with hair uncombed these many years, the Vedas open 
before him. His body is smeared with ashes and dung. 
His countenance wears a look of utter stupidity. This 



112 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

is the twice-born Yogi/ the consummate fruit of Brah- 
manism. This is the answer of the sacred books to 
the old question, What shall I do to be saved ? The 
twice-born Yogi is losing himself in Brahm. He has 
no longer any consciousness of guilt, passion or appe- 
tite, and moves not save when, w^ith a spiritual pride 
which would be supremely ludicrous were it not so 
lamentable, he lifts his dreamy eyes and mutters, " I 
am God ! I am God !" Thus *' the highest attainment 
of the Brahman devotee is blasphemy," and with this 
blasphemy on his lips he lives uselessly and stolidly 
dies.^ 

^ " The three upper castes are styled * the twice-born,' because their 
sons are initiated into the study of the Veda, the management of the 
sacred fire and of the purifying rites by a singular ceremony — the rite 
of conducting a boy to a spiritual teacher — connected with which is the 
investiture with the sacred cord, ordinarily worn over the left shoulder 
and under the right arm." — Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, article " Brah- 
manism." 

2 *' That holy man who stands immovable, 

As if erect upon a pinnacle, 

His appetites and organs all subdued, 

Sated with knowledge secular and sacred, 

To whom a lump of earth, a stone or gold, 

To whom friends, relatives, acquaintances. 

Neutrals and enemies, the good and bad, 

Are all alike, is called ' one yoked with God.' 

The man who aims at that supreme condition 

Of perfect yoking with the Deity 

Must first of all be moderate in all things. 

In food, in sleep, in vigilance, in action. 

In exercise and recreation. Then 

Let him, if seeking God by deep abstraction. 

Abandon his possessions and his hopes. 

Betake himself to some secluded spot. 

And fix his heart and thoughts on God alone. 



BRAHMANISM. 1 1 3 

III. The Results, — What, now, are the results ? For 
this is the crucial test of all religious systems. By their 
fruits ye shall know them. 

N'o Perso7tal Responsibility. — To begin with, Brah- 
manism is incapable of producing morality as such, 
because it ignores the deep-founded and eternal dis- 
tinctions between right and wrong. It has, indeed, no 
ground whereon to determine the moral quality of any 
act.^ To hurt a Brahman or a cow is regarded as a 

There let him choose a seat, not high nor low, 

And with a cloth or skin to cover him, 

And kusa-grass beneath him, let him sit 

Firm and erect, his body, head and neck 

Straight and immovable, his eyes directed 

Toward a single point, not looking round, 

Devoid of passion, free from anxious thought, 

His heart restrained and deep in meditation. 

E'en as a tortoise draws its head and feet 

Within its shell, so must he keep his organs 

Withdrawn from sensual objects. He whose senses 

Are well controlled attains to sacred knowledge, 

And thence obtains tranquillity of thought. 

Without quiescence there can be no bliss. 

E'en as a storm-tossed ship upon the waves. 

So is the man whose heart obeys his passions, 

Which like the winds will hurry him away. Quiescence, 

Quiescence, is the state of the Supreme. 

He who, intent on meditation, joins 

His soul with the Supreme, is like a flame 

That flickers not when sheltered from the wind." 

— Hinduism, p. 210. 
1 " The Institutes of Manu regulated the moral and social life of the 
people, prescribinor certain rules for the government of society and the 
punishment of crimes. Purity of life was enjoined on all. One of the 
chief duties was to honor father and mother — the mother a thousand 
times the most — and the Brahman more than either. Widows are for- 
bidden to remarry, and the duties of a wife are thus described : * The 
8 



114 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

mortal sin, while to lie, steal and commit all kinds of 
unmentionable vileness are mere peccadilloes. The 
independent being or personality of the soul being 
denied, there can be no personal responsibility or 
hindrance to an evil life. Tell a pundit that he is 
guilty of theft or lying, and his answer is, " God is 
everywhere — in you, in me, in everything around us. 
He enables me to move my lips and to extend my 
hands. If, therefore, I have lied or stolen, the blame 
must be laid on Him who lives and acts in me." Dr. 
Caird says : " The hidden logic of pantheism leads, by 
natural sequence, to a fatalistic morality — a morality 
which tolerates or sanctions the vices that spring from 
the natural desires. For moral distinctions disappear 
in a religion which conceives of God as no nearer to 
the pure heart than to that which is the haunt of selfish 
and sensual lusts. The lowest appetites and the loftiest 

wife must always be in a cheerful temper, devoting herself to the good 
management of the household, taking great care of the furniture and 
keeping down all expenses with a frugal hand. The husband to whom 
her father has given her she must obsequiously honor while he lives, 
and never neglect him when he dies. The husband gives bliss con- 
tinually to his wife here below, and he will give her happiness in the 
next world. He must be constantly revered as a god by a virtuous 
wife, even if he does not observe approved usages or is devoid of good 
qualities. A faithful wife, who wishes to attain heaven and dwell there 
with her husband, must never do anything unkind toward him, whether 
he be living or dead.' The following was the punishment for killing 
a cow, an animal treated with the honors due to a deity : * All day the 
guilty must wait on a herd of cows, and stand quaffing the dust raised 
by their hoofs. Free from passion, he must stand when they stand, 
follow when they move, lie down near them when they lie down. By 
thus waiting on a herd for three months he who has killed a cow atones 
for his guilt.' " — QUACKENBOS's Ancient Literature, p. 39. 



BRAHMANISM. IIJ 

moral aspirations, the grossest impurities and the most 
heroic virtues, are alike consecrated by the presence 
of God." 

" Like GodSy like People!' — On the other hand, the 
sanctions of morality are equally impaired among the 
masses, who, unable to penetrate the inner sanctuary 
of pantheism, are content to worship the common 
gods. It is a true saying, " Like gods, like people/' 
The gods of the Hindus are vile. The best of them, 
Vishnu the Helper, is a false and cruel monster. How 
can a people bowing in worship before the altars of 
divine thieves, liars, murderers and adulterers be other- 
wise than immoral ? Said the Abbe du Bois, a mis- 
sionary at Mysore : " I have never yet seen a religious 
procession in India without its presenting to me the 
image of hell." Add to that the testimony of Bishop 
Heber, also a missionary, who said : ** I have never 
met with a race of men whose standard of morality 
is so low, whose ordinary conversation is so vile, who 
shed blood with so little repugnance." Thus in India 
we behold an utter divorcement of religion and mo- 
rality. A large proportion of the inmates of prisons 
are of the Brahman caste." " The Hindu mind," says 
James Freeman Clarke, " is singularly pious, but also 
singularly immoral, capable at once of loftiest thoughts 
and of basest deeds." India is the land of the old-time 
suttee, of almost universal sensuality, of abject in- 
dolence and beggary, of false social distinctions, of 
thuggism and infanticide, and of woman's imprison- 
ment in the zenana. 

This is what Brahmanism.with its one transcendental 



Il6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Brahm and its three hundred and thirty milHons of 
common gods, has been able to do for the proud 
Ar}'ans in a period of three thousand years. Is this 
religion true or false? 

A Better Day Daivning. — Blessed be God ! a better 
day is dawning for India. The flag that floats above 
her cities' gates is that of a Christian nation, and the 
name of Jesus, before which the walls and battle- 
ments of venerable usage are as spiders' webs, is 
being preached beneath her banyan trees. In the 
sacred city of Benares — where not many years ago a 
missionar}^ was stoned for polluting with his feet the 
sacred river — a company of native Christians are wont 
to worship God by the river-side. ]\Iax iMiiller says : 
*' Brahmanism is dead and gone." There is a tradition 
among the people that the old faith of the Ar}^ans is 
to be supplanted in fullness of time by another coming 
from the distant West. That time, let us believe, is 
drawing nicrh. It cannot be Ions: ere Christ, assuminof 
in fulfillment of prophecy the place of the tenth avatar 
of Vishnu, shall usher in the golden age.^ 

An address was delivered some years ago by Baboo 

^ "Said a Hindu to one of our missionaries: ' Reviling our gods, 
criticising our shastras and ridiculing our ritual will accomplish nothing. 
But the stor\' you tell of Him who loved and died — that story, sir, will 
overthrow our temples, destroy our ritual, abolish our shastras and ex- 
tinguish our gods.' In the year 1800 the first Hindu convert was bap- 
tized in the Ganges, Krishna Pal by name. He was sorely persecuted; 
but his reply was, ' I have been a great sinner. I heard of Christ, that 
he laid down his life for sinners. I thought, What love is this ! Now, 
say, if anything like this love was ever shown by any of your gods? 
Did Doorga or Kale or Krishna die for sinners ?' Self-prompted, he 
erected the first native place of worship in Bengal. In one of the 



BRAHMA NISM, 1 1 / 

Chunder Sen — not a Christian himself, but a learned 
Brahman weary of his ancestral faith — in which he 
used these words : " Who rules India ? What power 
is it that sways our destinies at the present moment ? 
You are mistaken if you think it is Lord Lytton in the 
Cabinet or the military genius of Sir Frederick Haines 
in the field that rules India. It is not politics, it is not 
diplomacy, that has laid a firm hold of the Indian heart. 
It is not the glittering bayonet nor the fiery cannon that 
influences us. Armies never conquered the heart of a 
nation. No ! If you wish to secure the allegiance of 
India, it must be by exercising a spiritual influence. 
And such, indeed, has been the case. You cannot 
deny that our hearts have been touched and conquered 
by the superior power. This power is Christ. Christ 
rules India. England has sent us a tremendous moral 
force in the life and character of that mighty Prophet 
to conquer and hold this empire. None but Jesus — 
none but Jesus — none but Jesus ever deserved this 
bright, this precious diadem, India; and Jesus shall 
have \tr 

hymns he wrote he, coming from dark idolatry, expresses the senti- 
ments of all who feel themselves redeemed by propitiatory love: 

* O thou, my soul, forget no more 

The Friend who all thy sorrows bore ! 

Let every idol be forgot, 

But, O my soul, forget him not ! 

* Jesus for thee a body takes, 

Thy guilt assumes, thy fetters breaks, 
Discharging all thy dreadful debt ; 
And canst thou e'er such love forget ?' " 

— Monday Chib, for 1879, p. 401. 



V. 
BUDDHISM. 



I. Its Founder : Gautama, "the Buddha." 
II. Sacred Books : Tripitaka, or "The Three Baskets." 
III. Theology : "The Four Truths" and "The Noble Eight- 
fold Path." 

(i) Bttddh, or the Universal Mind. 

(2) Karma, or the Law of Consequences. 

(3) Nirvana , or Annihilation. 
Ce7itral Thought: Self-culture. 

^' What shall I do to be saved f Be sublimely indifferent to 
everything. 



V. BUDDHISM. 

The Aryans who came over the Hindu-Kush Moun- 
tains about 1 200 B. c. brought with them the rehgion 
of the Rig- Veda. In course of time they pushed their 
way to a supreme place among the inhabitants, arro- 
gating to themselves the title of Brahmans, or priests 
of Brahm. In their hands the philosophy of the Rig- 
Veda grew into thousands of tomes and developed into 
the rarest and most ethereal pantheism, and its morality 
degenerated at length into a system of rites and cere- 
monies whose end was merely the maintenance of the 
sacerdotal caste in a life of dreamy indolence. The 
people meanwhile, following their blind guides, wan- 
dered farther and farther from the true God. Their 
spiritual nature was cramped and crushed in the coils 
of a ritualism as pitiless and deadly as the serpents of 
Tenedos, and if they looked above the heads of their 
priests for relief, lo ! there was the stony, smiling face 
of Brahm. But in the good providence of our Father 
there is no pain without its remedy, no night without 
a morning ; the darkest hour is that which unfolds the 
surest prophecy of dawn. 

I. Birth of Gaittmna, — In the year 447 b. c.^ a child 

was born in the palace at Kapilavastu, the royal city 

^ James Freeman Clarke makes it 623 B. c. ; Rhys Davids, 500 B. c. 

121 



122 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

of Oude, who was destined to turn and overturn the 
existing order of things. His family name was Gautama. 
If we are to form a just conception of Buddhism, it 
will be necessary, first of all, to know something of this 
wonderful child, for he was at once its founder, exem- 
plar, preacher and god. 

His birth, according to the sacred traditions, was on 
this wise : By the side of the river Rohini, in a grove 
of lofty satin trees, he first opened his eyes upon the 
world. Angels were there to bid him welcome ; the 
sun stood still, casting a shadow over the sacred spot 
where he lay. Immediately after his birth the child 
walked three paces, and in a voice like thunder pro- 
claimed a new name, Siddartha, "the fulfillment of 
wishes."^ At that moment " a radiant light was spread 
over ten thousand worlds. The blind saw, the dumb 
spake ; prisoners were loosed from their chains ; refresh- 
ing winds blew gently over the earth; lotus- flowers 
were suddenly opened in full bloom ; lilies dropped 
from the sky; the air was filled with perfume and with 
songs of angels echoing far and near." It was known 
thus from the beginning that he was destined to a 
place of unusual prominence. At five months of age 

^ "To the pious Buddhist," says Rhys Davids (p. 28 of Buddhism, 
to which the writer acknowledges special obligation for material used in 
the preparation of this chapter), " it seems irreverent to speak of Gautama 
by his mere ordinary name, and he makes use, therefore, of one of those 
numerous epithets which are used only of the Buddha, the Enlightened 
One. Such are Sakya-sina, * the lion of the tribe of Sakya ;' Sakya- 
muni, * the Sakya sage ;' Sugata, * the happy one ;' Sattha, * the teacher;' 
Jina, * the conqueror;' Bhagava, * the blessed one;' Loka-natha, * the 
Lord of the world ;' Sarvajna, * the omniscient one;' Dharma-raja, * the 
king of righteousness,' and many others." 



BUDDHISM, 123 

the infant, being left under a tree alone, meditated so 
deeply that he fell into a trance ; when his nurse re- 
turned she saw him crowned with a halo of light, and 
overhead, kneeling in the clouds, were three wise men 
with flowing beards who chanted a prophecy : " This 
child shall be the teacher of a law which shall be as 
water to extinguish the fiery griefs of life, as light to 
enlighten its darkness, and as a chariot to carry us 
through the wilderness to the promised land/' 

His Early Life, — As the lad grew older he was by 
his friends surrounded with all the delights and allure- 
ments of a worldly life, in the hope of weaning him 
from his serious moods. He was married to the beauti- 
ful princess Yasodhara; three palaces were built for 
him, 

" Where skill had spent 
All lovely phantasies to lull the mind, 
And always breathed sweet airs, and night and day 
Delicious foods were spread, and dewy fruits, 
Sherbets new-chilled with snows of Himalay, 
And sweetmeats made of subtle daintiness. 
And night and day served there a chosen band 
Of nautch-girls, dark-browed ministers of love, 
Who fanned the sleeping eyes of the happy prince ; 
And thus Siddartha lived forgetting." 

Forgetting? Ah, no : 

" Still came 
The shadows of his meditation back, 
As the lake's silver dulls with driving clouds." 

The prince would wander away into the deep shadows 
of the forest and spend days together meditating on 
the problems of life. He used to say, " Nothing on 



124 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

earth is stable, nothing is real. Life is Hke the spark 
produced by the friction of wood ; it is lighted and ex- 
tinguished; we know not whence it came or whither 
it goes. There must be some Supreme Intelligence 
where we may find rest. Oh that I might attain it ! 
for I would then bring light unto men. If I were free 
myself, I could deliver the world." ^ At this time he 
beheld a threefold vision which greatly deepened his 
weariness of life: (i) an old man, bald, wrinkled, with 
chattering teeth, feebly leaning on his staff; (2) a man 
suffering from a loathsome disease, homeless, friendless, 
dying in the mire by the roadside ; (3) a decomposing 
corpse, surrounded by mourners shrieking and tearing 
their hair. And, seeing these things, the prince ex- 
claimed, ^* Woe to youth which hastens on to old 
age ! Woe to health which succumbs to so many 
dire diseases ! Woe to life which ends so miserably! 
I will go aside and meditate how I may bring about 
deliverance." This was the turning-point in Sid- 
dartha's life. 

" The Great Remtnciationy — One night he arose from 
his perfumed bed, " roused into activity," says the chron- 
icle, *' like one who is told that his house is burning." 
All delights and luxuries invited him to stay ; his wife 
lay buried in slumber. 

** * I will depart,' he said ; * the hour is come ! 
Thy tender lips, dear sleeper, summon me 
To that which saves the earth, but sunders us.' " 

Then followed the great renunciation, Mahabhinish" 

^ Max Muller. 



BUDDHISM. 125 

Kramana, Putting aside the glittering hopes of empire 
and conquest, he determined to go forth *' with patient, 
stainless feet," seeking deliverance. 

" This will I do, because the woeful cry 
Of life and all flesh living cometh up 
Into my ears, and all my soul is full 
Of pity for the sickness of this world ; • 

Which I will heal, if healing may be found 
By uttermost renouncing." ^ 

One farewell look into the face of his sleeping wife, 
and he was gone out into the night alone. This was 
the life he had chosen — darkness, solitude henceforth, 
if only it might end in deliverance.^ 

^ Light of Asia. 

2 ** It was long years before he saw his home again. His return, in 
answer to the summons of his venerable father, is thus described : 
Gautama started for Kapilavastu, and on his arrival there stopped, 
according to his custom, in a grove outside the town. There his father, 
uncles and others came to see him, but the latter at least were by no 
means pleased with their mendicant clansman ; and, though it was the 
custom on such occasions to offer to provide ascetics with their daily 
food, they all left without having done so. The next day, therefore, 
Gautama set out, accompanied by his disciples, carrying his bowl to beg 
for a meal. As he came near the gate of the little town he hesitated 
whether he should not go straight to the raja's residence, but at last he 
determined to adhere to a rule of the order, according to which a Buddh- 
ist mendicant should beg regularly from house to house. It soon 
reached the raja's ears that his son was walking through the streets 
begging. Startled at such news, he rose up, and, holding his outer 
robe together with his hands, went out quickly, and, hastening to the 
place where Gautama was, he said, < Why, master, do you put us to 
shame ? Why do you go begging for your food ? Do you think it is 
not possible to provide food for so many mendicants?' 

" * Oh, maharaja,' was the reply, * this is the custom of all our race.* 

" * But we are descended from an illustrious race of warriors, and not 
one of them has ever begged his bread.' 

** * You and your family,' answered Gautama, * may claim descent 



126 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

He sought the Brahman priest Alara, but found no 
clue to the great secret. Then to the mountains of 

from kings ; my descent is from the prophets (buddhas) of old, and 
they, begging their food, have always lived on alms. But, my father, 
when a man has found a hidden treasure it is his duty first to present 
his father with the most precious of the jewels;* and he accordingly 
addressed his father on the cardinal tenet of his doctrine, his words 
being reported in the form of two verses given in the Dhamma- 
pada: 

* Rise up, and loiter not; 

Follow after a holy life : 
Who follows virtue rests in bliss, 
Both in this world and in the next. 

Follow after a holy life, 

Follow not after sin; 
Who follows virtue rests in bliss, 
Both in this world and in the next. 

" Suddhodana made no reply to this, but, simply taking his son's 
bowl, led him to his house, w^here the members of the family and the 
servants of the household came to do him honor ; but Yasodhara did 
not come. * If I am of any value in his eyes, he will himself come,* 
she had said : * I can welcome him better here.' Gautama noticed her 
absence, and, attended by two of his disciples, went to the place where 
she was, first warning his followers not to prevent her should she try 
to embrace him, although no member of his order might touch or be 
touched by a woman. When she saw him enter, a recluse in yellow 
robes with shaven head and shaven face, though she knew it would be 
so, she could not contain herself, and falling on the ground she held 
him by the feet and burst into tears. Then, remembering the impassable 
gulf between them, she rose and stood on one side. The raja thought 
it necessary to apologize for her, telling Gautama how entirely she had 
continued to love him, refusing comforts which he denied himself, 
taking but one meal a day, and sleeping, not on a bed, but on a mat 
spread on the gronnd. The different accounts often tell us the thoughts 
of the Buddha on any particular occasion; here they are silent, stating 
only that he then told a Jataka story, showing how great had been her 
virtue in a former birth. She became an earnest hearer of the new 
doctrines ; and when, some time afterward, much against his will, 



BUDDHISM. 127 

Vindyha, where, entering a hermit's cell, the fame of 
his holiness spread, says the chronicle, '* like the sound 
of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies." Here 
he endured a mental struggle so severe that his con- 
flicting thoughts are represented as angels of light and 
darkness met on an embattled field, while sympathizing 
nature yielded a thousand portents : " The earth with 
its oceans and mountains quaked like a conscious 
being — like a fond bride when forcibly torn from her 
bridegroom — like the festoons of a vine shaking under 
the blasts of a whirlwind. The ocean rose under this 
vibration, and the rivers rolled back to their sources. 
Peaks of lofty mountains, where forests had grown for 
ages, rolled crumbling to the earth ; a fierce storm 
howled on every side; the roar of the concussion 
became terrific; the very sun enveloped itself in awful 
darkness and a host of headless spirits filled the air." 
Thus for heroic days and weeks the conflict went on. 
At length, on a certain memorable day, as he sat medi- 
tating under a tree, to be known thenceforth as '' the 
sacred bo tree,"^ his face turned toward the east, it 

Gautama was induced to established an order of female mendicants, 
his widowed wife Yasodhara became one of the first of the Buddhist 
nuns." — Buddhism, pp. 64-66. 

1 " This tree came to occupy much the same position among the 
Buddhists as the cross among Christians. Worship was actually paid 
to it, and an offshoot from it is still growing on the spot where the 
Buddhist pilgrims found it, and where they believed the original tree 
had grown, in the ancient temple at Bodh Gaya, near Rajgir, built 
about 500 A. D. by the celebrated Amara Sinha. A branch of it planted 
at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, in the middle of the third century B. c, is 
still growing there — the oldest historical tree in the world. 

" Sir Emerson Tennent says of it : * The bo tree of Anuradhapura is, 



128 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

came to him in a beatific vision, it came like a sunburst 
— *' the knowledge that can never be shaken." A throne 
of crystal sprang up from the earth beside him; he 
arose and sat upon it — no longer Siddartha, but The 
Buddha, *^the Enlightened." 

" Turning the Wheel of the Law!' — For a time he 
hesitated whether he should keep this knowledge to 
himself or reveal it ; but his feeling of humanity pre- 
vailed. Burdened with the wonderful secret, he re- 
traced his steps from the forest, saying, 

" I now desire to turn the wheel of the excellent law. 
With this intent I go to the city of Benares, 
To give light to those enshrouded in darkness 
And open the gates of immortality to men." 

The watchword of his preaching was '' For all ! for 

in all probability, the oldest historical tree in the world. It was planted 
288 years before Christ, and hence is now 2147 years old. Ages vary- 
ing from one to four thousand years have been assigned to the baobabs 
of Senegal, the eucalyptus of Tasmania, the dragon tree of Orotava, 
the Wellingtonia of California, and the chestnut of Mount Etna. But 
all these estimates are matter of conjecture, and such calculations, how- 
ever ingenious, must be purely inferential; whereas the age of the bo 
tree is matter of record, its conservancy has been an object of solicitude 
to successive dynasties, and the stoiy of its vicissitudes has been pre- 
served in a series of continuous chronicles among the most authentic 
that have been handed down by mankind. Compared with it the oak 
of Ellerslie is but a sapling, and the Conqueror's Oak in Windsor Forest 
barely numbers half its years. The yew trees of Fountains Abbey are 
believed to have flourished there twelve hundred years ago ; the olives 
in the garden of Gethsemane were full grown when the Saracens were 
expelled from Jerusalem; and the cypress of Soma, in Lombardy, is 
said to have been a tree in the time of Julius Caesar ; yet the bo tree is 
older than the oldest of these by a century, and would almost seem to 
verify the prophecy pronounced when it was planted, that it would 
* flourish and be green for ever.' " — Buddhis7?i, pp. 39 and 232. 



BUDDHISM, 129 

all !" No longer should the haughty priests of Brahm 
monopolize the path heavenward; no longer should 
the divisional walls of caste prevent any from seeking 
the great deliverance. Slaves, pariahs, sudras, — all 
were to be invited to embrace the rest-giving truth. 
On reaching Benares he called together his former 
friends and expounded to them the truths of his 
philosophy, or, to use the technical phrase, he "turned 
the wheel of the law." It is related that earth and 
heaven were moved during the delivery of this dis- 
course : " The angels forsook their shining seats and 
came to hearken; the sound of their approach was 
like the rustling of winds in a forest, until at the blast 
of the archangel's trumpet they became as still as a 
becalmed sea. Then the everlasting hills, the founda- 
tions of the earth, leaped for joy and bowed them- 
selves before the blessed one, while the powers of the 
air disposed all things appropriately and the perfumes 
of rare flowers was diffused around. *The evening 
was like a lovely maiden; the stars were the pearls 
upon her neck, the dark clouds her braided hair, the 
deepening space her flowing robe. As a crown she 
had the heavens where the angels dwell ; the three 
worlds were as her body; her eyes were the white 
lotus-flowers which open to the rising moon ; and her 
voice was as it were the humming of bees. To wor- 
ship the Buddha and to hear the first preaching of the 
word this lovely maiden came.' " 

Propagation of the New Religion, — It need scarcely 
be said that a discourse attended by such tokens of 
supernatural interest was followed by many conver- 



130 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

sions. A few months later the Buddha called his dis- 
ciples together and sent them forth upon a missionary- 
journey. '' Beloved mendicants/' said he, "we are free 
from the passions which encompass men and angels. 
It is incumbent on us, as the most important duty, to 
labor on behalf of others and open to them the bless- 
ings of the great deliverance. Let us here and now 
part with each other and go in various directions, no 
two of us following the same way. Go, preach the 
most excellent Law." This was the beginning of the 
propagation of Dharma^ the Buddhist system. 

Tlie Buddha's Death, — The great teacher was spared 
to gather a vast multitude of adherents. He died in 
peace, attended by reverent and loving friends, to whom 
he addressed these farewell words : '* O mendicants, let 
me impress it upon you that the parts and powers of 
man must be dissolved : therefore work out your sal- 
vation with all diligence." 

Buddhism is to-day one of the most prevalent relig- 
ions of the earth. Its adherents are estimated at five 
hundred millions. Every third one of the inhabitants 
of the globe is a Buddhist. Beginning its sway in 
India, and driven thence after a struggle of a thousand 
years, it moved northward, building rock-cut temples 
as it went, over Siam, Burmah, the vast empire of Japan 
and considerable portions of China. 

What is this religion ? What was Buddha's wonder- 
ful secret? Half a century ago it would have been 
scarcely possible to answer that question, but of late a 
great light has been thrown upon this subject by the 
researches of Oriental scholars. 



BUDDHISM. 131 

II. The Sacred Books. — The data for an estimate of 
Buddhism are to be found in the sacred books. These 
are three^ called " Tripitaka," or The Three Baskets, 

1. The first Pitaka or Basket is called Sutra, It 
contains the discourses of the Buddha. 

2. The second Basket is called Dharma, It consists 
of clear presentations of doctrine and ethics for the 
people generally. 

3. The third Basket is called Vinaj/a. It consists 
of rules of discipline for the priests. 

These books are declared to have been written from 
memory by the disciples of Buddha, who met for that 
purpose soon after the great teacher's death and sat in 
council seven months. They contain an amount of 
literature almost bewildering, forming in all more 
than three hundred volumes folio and consisting of 
29,368,000 letters. The market price of the Kanjur 
edition, printed by command of the emperor Khian- 
Lung of China, is seven thousand oxen, from which it 
is evident that the Buddhist bible is only for the select 
few. Its character is hardly such as to commend it to the 
acceptance of enlightened men. What shall we think 
of a book claiming to be inspired and infallible which 
declares the universe to consist of multitudinous worlds, 
circular and threefold, with an enormous mountain 
called Maha-Meru rising from their midst, surrounded 
by concentric circles of rock, of which the outer is 
divided into four quarters or great continents, our 
earth, Jambudvipa, heaven and hell, being parts of it ? 
The doctrinal or philosophical chapters are so abstruse 
and tenuous as to elude the grasp of ordinary mortals. 



132 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Those portions only which have reference to the con- 
duct of daily life are, for the most part, worthy of un- 
qualified praise. In illustration of this statement the 
following precept- sentences are given: 

*^ He who lives for pleasure only, his senses uncon- 
trolled, idle and weak, the tempter will as certainly 
overcome him as the wind breaks the quivering tree." 

" As the bee gathers nectar and departs without in- 
juring the blossom, so dwelleth a wise man upon the 
earth." 

" The fool is filled with evil, though he gather it little 
by little, as the water-pot is filled with the rain falling 
drop by drop." 

" Let us live happily, calling nothing our own ; not 
hating our enemies ; free from greed among the greedy. 
We shall then resemble the gods, whose daily food is 
happiness." 

Such precepts we at once perceive to be a vast im- 
provement on those of the Rig- Veda, which, as inter- 
preted by the Brahmans, had chiefly to do with the 
feeding of themselves and the sacred cows. The intro- 
duction of Buddhism was a reformation ^ — a reform as 
positive and fundamental as that which was enkindled 
by the intrepid zeal of Luther, and against the same 

1 " What, then, is Buddhism? It is certainly not Brahmanism, yet 
it arose out of Brahmanism, and from the first had much in common 
with it. Brahmanism and Buddhism are closely interwoven with each 
other. Brahmanism is a religion which may be described as all theology, 
for it makes God everything and everything God. Buddhism is no re- 
ligion at all, and certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, 
morality and benevolence, without real deity, prayer or priest." — Monier 
Williams. 



BUDDHISM. 133 

twin spirits of mysticism and cold formality. It is not 
without reason, therefore, that James Freeman Clarke 
has called this religion " the Protestantism of the 
East." 

Central Thought: Self -culture , — The sacred books 
are largely devoted to the importance of self-culture ^ 
or the development of the intellectual as distinguished 
from that of the carnal life. This is indeed the central 
thought of the Buddhist system. Call it self-control 
if you please, or, better still, self-renunciation, its per- 
fect illustration being found in "the great renuncia- 
tion " of Gautama himself The emphasis of the teach- 
ing is placed on the perfecting of the inward man 

^ " If we now try to sum up the evidence which we have gathered 
from different indications respecting Buddhism, I do not know that we 
can do it better than in the words of Mr. Hodgson, the Resident at 
Nepaul, to whom I have already referred. * The one infallible diag- 
nostic of Buddhism,' he says with an emphasis and decision which 
were the result of patient inquiries conducted during many years, * is a 
belief in the infinite capacity of the human intellect.' This is the con- 
clusion to which all our inquiries into the system have conducted us. 
The idea of an Adi-Buddha, or Absolute Eternal Intelligence, is there, 
but it is hidden; it gradually evaporates. The possibility of utter 
atheism is there, but the heart flies in dismay from it. The vision of a 
unity resulting from the reconciliation of opposites is there, but it either 
passes into a mere theory or seeks for images to express it, which makes 
it material. The conception of an intelligent soul in nature is there, 
but it quickly resolves itself into a recognition of all nature as sym- 
bolizing human deeds and attributes. Lastly, the idea of deified men 
is there, but this loses itself in another, that there is in man, in 
humanity, a certain Divine Intelligence which at different times and 
in different places manifests itself more or less completely, and which 
must have some one central manifestation. The human intellect is first 
felt to be the perfect organ of worship; finally, its one object. This is 
Buddhism." — F. D. Maurice, in Religions of the World, p. %t,. 



134 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

in preference to penance, sacrifice and all outward 
forms of merit-making. Thus it is written in the 
Pitakas : 

" What is the use of platted hair, O fool ? 
Or what of a garment of skins ? 
Thy low passions are within thee ; 
And lo ! thou makest the outside clean." ^ 

Never did preacher chant more dolorously " all is 
vanity and vexation of spirit " than does the Buddhist 
Man is an infinitesimal being; his life is as a breath 
of wind passing over the lotus-flower.^ The highest 

^ *' That mendicant does right to whom omens, meteors, dreams and 
signs are things abolished ; he is free from all their evils. 

" That mendicant does right who is found not thinking, * People 
should salute me;' who, though cursed by the world, yet cherishes 
no ill-will toward it. 

"That mendicant does right who is tranquil and has completed his 
course ; who sees tmth as it really is, but is not partial when there are 
persons of different faith (to be dealt with) ; who with firm mind over- 
comes ill-will and covetousness, which injure men." — From " Rules of 
the Sacred Order " in the Pitakas. 

' " A watchman on a lofty tower sees a charioteer urging his horse 
along the plain : the driver thinks he is moving rapidly, and the horse 
in the pride of life seems to scorn the earth from which it thinks to sep- 
arate itself; but to the watchman above horse and chariot and driver 
seem to crawl along the ground, and to be as much a part of the earth 
as the horse's mane, waving in the wind, is a part of the horse itself. 
As a child grows up his mind reflects as in a dim mirror the occur- 
rences of the surrounding world, and practically, though unconsciously, 
it regards itself as the centre round which the universe turns. Grad- 
ually its circle widens somewhat, but the grown man never escapes 
from the delusion of self, and spends his life in a constant round of 
desires and cares, longing for objects which when attained produce not 
happiness, but fresh desires and cares — always engaged in the pursuit 
of some fancied good. For the majority of men these cares are mean, 
petty and contemptible ; but even those whose ambition urges them to 



BUDDHISM, 135 

height of folly, therefore, is self-pleasing. The Buddh- 
ist who comprehends this strips himself of all except 
''eight possessions "—a loose robe, two undergarments, 
a girdle, a bowl for alms, a razor, a needle and a water- 
strainer. Thus reducing the gratification of the outer 
man to the very minimum, he sedulously devotes him- 
self to inward culture or the sinking of self into the 
universal mind. 

III. Theology: The Creed. — The creed of Buddhism is 
briefly set forth in the '' Four Truths " and the " Noble 
Eightfold Path.'^ 

The Four Truths are as follows : 

(i) All existence is sorrow. 

(2) The cause of sorrow is thirst, or desire in what- 
ever form. 

(3) All sorrow ceases when desire is slain. This 
condition, the annihilation of feeling, is called Nii'vatia, 
** When a man overcomes his contemptible thirst, his 
sufferings fall from him as water from a lotus-leaf." 

(4) There is only one way to reach this consumma- 
tion so* devoutly to be wished — to wit, by the Noble 
Eightfold Path. 

The Noble Eightfold Path is as follows: (i) Right 
Belief, (2) Right Feelings, (3) Right Speech (4) Right 
Actions, (5) Right Means of Livelihood, (6) Right En- 
deavor, (7) Right Memory, and (8) Right Meditation. 
The pursuit of this path of self-culture is held to be 
the chief end of man. 

higher aims are equally seeking after vanity, and only laying themselves 
open to greater sorrows and more bitter disappointment." — Buddhism^ 
p. 88. 



136 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. 

Out of this thought of self-culture radiate the three 
cardinal truths — namely, Buddh, Karma and Nirvana. 
Let us get these definitely in mind. 

(i) Buddh. — Under this term we place theology 
proper; that is, the Buddhist's idea of God. 

Let it be said at the outset that he has no conception 
of Deity as we understand it. His creed is the very 
refinement of atheism. Max Miiller says : " Buddha 
admits no real cause of this unreal world. He denies 
the existence not only of a Creator, but of any absolute 
Being whatever." Draper, in his hitellectual Develop- 
ment of Europe, says: *' The fundamental principle of 
Buddhism is that there is a supreme power, but no 
Supreme Being. It asserts an impelling power in the 
universe, a self-existent and plastic principle, but not a 
self-existent, an eternal, a personal God." Dr. Caird 
says : '^ It reasserts the negative element involved in 
pantheism, and exaggerates it till not only every finite 
and anthropomorphic ingredient, but every vestige of 
positive thought, vanishes from the idea of God, and 
we seem to be left in the absolute negation of atheism." 
Monier Williams says : *^ The Buddha recognized no 
supreme deity. The only god, he affirmed, is what 
man himself can become." Here is the most striking 
feature of this religion. All other faiths are built upon 
a foundation of theism — the belief in One, perchance 
an unknown One, to whom souls trembling or grieving 
can lift their cry : 



*0 thou eternal One, whose presence bright 
All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 



BUDDHISM. 137 

Unchanged through Time's all-devastating flight; 

Thou only One ! Being above all beings ! 
Whom none can comprehend and none explore, 

Who fiU'st existence with thyself alone ; 
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er — 
Being whom we call God^ and know no more." 



But Buddhism has not even that — not so much as an 
altar to the Unknown God. What, then, does it wor- 
ship? 

The Universal Mind, — When Siddartha sat meditat- 
ing under the sacred bo tree the thought which came 
to him, uphfting, illuminating, deifying, making him 
Buddha^ was this : " The only real and substantial 
thing in the universe is Intellect; there is one great, 
all-embracing Intelligence of which the essential and 
constituent parts are the minds of men ; of this Buddh 
I know nothing, but I may form a definite conception 
of that within me which corresponds to the aggregate 
or universal mind; this, therefore, will I worship — 
Mind, Intellect, the Buddha, my self-conscious self" ^ 

In this conception of deity there seems to be a faint 
glimmer of the truth that was uttered by St. John : 
" In him was life, and the life was the light of men ; 
and the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
comprehended it not." Let the thought of Buddha be 
spiritualized, and we shall behold in it the Wisdom 
of Ecclesiastes ; nay, even a suggestion of the Holy 
Ghost. Still, pausing where he did, a gulf infinite 

^ " The word Buddha, it seems to be admitted on all hands, means 
Intelligence. That men ought to worship pure Intelligence must have 
been the first proclamation of the original Buddhists." — MAURICE. 



138 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and bridgeless lay between his feet and the enhght- 
ening truth. 

He was a rationahst, his last appeal being to the 
human intellect. He was a pantheist, holding that 
the universal mind is everything and all. He was an 
atheist, practically, holding that aside from the im- 
personal Adi-Buddha there is no God.^ 

Idols. — It is easy to perceive how this religion, be- 
ginning as a protest against the idolatrous rites and 
ceremonies of Brahmanism, would itself in time surely 
develop into idolatry. No sooner had Buddha died 
than a great image was built to his memory ; wonder- 
ful tales were told concerning him ; ere long his name 
was invested with superstitious awe. The Buddha 
now was God : his image^ designed to represent the 
apotheosis of Intellect, in the popular eyes was simply 
a deified man. But why, if Siddartha became Buddha, 
might not any other heroic and virtuous man do like- 
wise ? Thus buddhas were multiplied and hero-wor- 
ship began. All great men had their devotees, and 
the craft of the image-maker was most prosperous. 
The Buddhist temples are pantheons.^ There is one 

^ " What are we to say of a doctrine which is sometimes represented 
as one of almost perfect* theism ; sometimes as direct atheism ; some- 
times as having the closest analogy to what in a Greek philosopher or 
in a modern philosopher would be called pantheism ; sometimes as the 
worship of human saints or heroes ; sometimes as altogether symboli- 
cal ; sometimes as full of the highest abstract speculations ; sometimes 
as vulgar idolatry? Strange as it may seem, the same doctrine is, I be- 
lieve, capable of assuming all these different phases ; no one of them 
can be thoroughly understood without reference to the other.'' — F. D. 
Maurice, in Religions of the World, p. 74. 

* " As Buddhism does not recognize the idea of God, it has properly 



BUDDHISM. 139 

at Canton where five hundred canonized saints sit " in 
a long impressive row." There is another at Ayuthia 

no worship or sacrifices, and originally no religious ceremonies ; but as 
it spread a cultus arose. The image and relics of Buddha himself and 
the other holy personages of the legends were worshiped, and the cere- 
monies consisted of offerings of flowers and perfumes, with music and 
the recital of hymns and prayers. Formulas of prayer have also come 
into use, although the idea of a Being who answers prayers is utterly 
foreign to the system. The prayers are supposed to produce their effect 
by a kind of magical efficacy. Hence the praying-machines of Tibet 
and Mongolia are logical consequences. The religious communities 
assemble for prayer three times a day — i. e. morning, noon and even- 
ing. They publicly confess their sins on the days of the new and full 
moon, and the laity also attend for confession and to listen to the read- 
ing of some sacred text." — Rev. S. M. Jackson, Schaff-Herzog Ency- 
clopedia^ article "Buddhism." 

" As the pilgrim in the story who was ordered, as a penance, to walk 
a long distance with peas in his shoes, took the liberty of easing his 
task by first boiling his peas, so the Buddhists have invented their 
famous contrivance of prayer-mills by which to obtain the merit of 
prayer without the trouble of praying. Father Hue saw many of these 
mills. They have a revolving wheel on which are pasted numerous 
prayers. Every time it is turned it is considered that as much merit is 
acquired as if all the prayers had been said aloud. Sometimes these 
wheels are put up by the side of the road, so that a traveler may acquire 
merit by giving them a twirl as he passes. A still more ingenious con- 
trivance is to fill a barrel full of written prayers — say one thousand — 
and then arrange it by the side of a brook, so that the water shall turn 
it continually, night and day. In this way they can easily acquire the 
merit of having said several millions of prayers every day." — Clarke's 
Events and Epochs in Religious History, p. 56. 

" There is no place in the Buddhist scheme for churches ; the offering 
of flowers before the sacred tree or image of the Buddha takes the place 
of worship. Buddhism does not acknowledge the efficacy of prayers, 
and in the warm countries where Buddhists live the occasional reading 
of the law or preaching of the word in public can take place best in 
the open air, by moonlight, under a simple roof of trees or palms." — 
Buddhism^ p. 168. 

" This period (the rainy season), called was (from the Sanskrit varsha^ 



I40 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

which has no less than fourteen thousand gods, begin- 
ning with a colossal image of the original Buddha. 
These were all designed to represent the adorableness 
of Intellect, but to the masses of the people they are 
simply gods. All day long their temples smoke with 
incense, and the dull dreamy eyes of the buddhas look 
down upon a prostrate throng of votaries. Thus there 
is a twofold aspect of this religion : To the enlightened 
few it is rationalism pure and simple, while to the mul- 

rain), is in Ceylon the finest part of the year; and as there are no reg- 
ular religious services at any other time, the peasantry celebrate the 
reading of Bana (or the Word) at Tc/^Mime, as their great religious 
festival. They put up under the palm trees a platform, roofed, but quite 
open at the sides, and ornamented vv^ith bright cloths and flowers, and 
round it they sit in the moonlight on the ground, and listen through the 
night with great satisfaction, if not with great intelligence, to the sacred 
words repeated by relays of shaven monks. The greatest favorite at 
these readings of Bana is the * Jataka ' book, which contains so many 
of the old fables and stories so common to the Ai-yan peoples, sanctified 
now and preserved by the leading hero in each, whether man or fairy 
or animal, being looked upon as an incarnation of the Buddha in one 
of his previous births. To these wonderful stories the simple peasantry, 
dressed in their best and brightest, listen all the night long with un- 
affected delight, chatting pleasantly now and again with their neighbors, 
and indulging all the while in the mild narcotic of the betel-leaf, their 
stores of which (and of its never-failing adjuncts, chunam — that is, white 
lime — and the areka-nut) afford a constant occasion for acts of polite good- 
fellowship. The first spirit of Buddhism may have passed away as com- 
pletely as the old reason for was ; neither hearers nor preachers may 
have that deep sense of evil in the world and in themselves, nor that 
high resolve to battle with and overcome it, which animated some of 
the early Buddhists, and they all think themselves to be earning * merit ' 
by their easy service ; but there is at least at these festivals a genuine 
feeling of human kindness, in harmony alike with the teachings of 
Gautama and with the gentle beauty of those moonlight scenes." — 
Buddhis7?if p. 57. 



BUDDHISM. 141 

titude it IS the worship of many gods. As to any great 
overruhng Power, with a heart to pity and arms to help 
the miseries of despairing men, there is none. Buddhism 
in searching for a god nearer than Brahm has wrecked 
itself upon Charybdis. It is absolutely '' without God 
in the world.'' 

(2) Karma, — The second of the distinguishing fea- 
tures of Buddhism is Karma : that is, the Law of Con- 
sequences. Buddha said : " Karma is the most essen- 
tial property of rational beings ; it is like the shadow 
which accompanies the body." By this law of retribu- 
tion the soul (or rather Intellect, for the Buddhist has 
no soul) is made to answer for every unjust act. As a 
man soweth, so also shall he reap : 

"The mills grind slow, 
But they grind woe.'' 

There is no pardon, no escaping the (Joom. It is an 
automatic law, administering itself — eye for eye, tooth 
for tooth, burning for burning. It follows us after death 
through our various transmigrations, meting out with 
just scales its exact recompenses. The religion of 
Buddha has a thousand hells, and every one of them 
is more terrible than any in the Inferno of Dante. It 
uses abundantly the motive of fear. 

" Bite not the hook beneath the silvered bait hid well; 

The man who walked o'er treachery's road to Paradise, 
When at the journey's end found he was snug in hell." 

And what is the influence of this Karma on the 
morality of the people ? Fear never yet lifted a man 



142 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to the highest plane of Hfe. It feeds our worst pas- 
sions — pride, hypocrisy and selfishness. A religion 
which overshadows all the acts and interests of daily 
life with a dread of what may follow in the dark laby- 
rinths of transmigration may make slaves, but never 
sons of God. 

The Moral Code. — The moral code of Buddhism is 
wellnigh perfect. " It is the singular merit of this 
religion, whatever view we take of the ultimate end 
to which it pointed as constituting the salvation of 
man, that the way by which it taught men to reach 
that end was simply that of inward purification and 
moral goodness. Outside of Christianity no religion 
which the world has ever seen has so sharply accen- 
tuated morality and duty as entering into the very 
essence of religion or as inseparably connected with 
it." ^ When the great teacher standing in the light 
of a jungle-fire on the opposite hillside lifted his voice 
against the fires of anger, ignorance and concupiscence, 
and against the multitude of evils, led by priestcraft, 
with which Brahmanism, as a flood, had covered the 
land,^ he gave the keynote of the ethical system which 

^ Dr. Caird. 

^ '* The new disciples who had been worshipers of Agni, the sacred 
fire, were seated with Gautama on the Elephant Rock, near Gaya, with 
the beautiful valley of Rajagriha stretched out before them, when a fire 
broke out in a jungle on the opposite hill. Taking the fire as his text, 
the teacher declared that so long as men remained in ignorance they 
were, as it were, consumed by a fire — by the excitement produced 
within them by the action of external things. These things acted upon 
them through the five senses and the heart (which Gautama regarded 
as a sixth organ of sense). The eye, for instance, perceives objects; 
from this perception arises an inward sensation producing pleasure or 



BUDDHISM. 143 

is contained in the Tripitakas. '* It is difficult," said 
Laboulaye in the French Academy, '' to comprehend 
how men not assisted by revelation could have soared 
so high and approached so near the truth." Knighton 
also says : " In Buddhism we have a code of morality 
and a list of precepts which for pureness, excellence 
and wisdom are only second to that of the divine 
Lawgiver himself" Its five great commandments 
are not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, 
not to lie, not to use intoxicating drink. It forbids 
also pride, anger, greediness, gossiping and every 
kind of vice. It enjoins reverence for parents, kind- 
ness toward the poor, meekness, rendering good for 
evil, and, above all, charity, which is the crown of 
virtues. ^ 

The Brief Formula, — There is a celebrated formu- 
la, called Pathnakka, which is supposed to embrace 
the sum and substance of the moral code, as fol- 
lows : 

pain. Sensations produce this misery and joy, because they supply 
fuel, as it were, to the inward fires, concupiscence, anger and ignorance, 
and the anxieties of birth, decay and death. The same was declared 
to be the case with the sensations produced by each of the other senses. 
But those who follow the Buddha's scheme of inward self-control — the 
four stages of the path whose gate is purity and whose goal is love — 
have become wise; the sensations from without no longer give fuel to 
the inward fire, since the fires of concupiscence, etc. have ceased to 
burn ; true disciples are thus free from that craving thirst which is the 
origin of evil ; the wisdom they have acquired will lead them on, sooner 
or later, to perfection ; they are delivered from the miseries which 
would result from another birth ; and even in this birth they no longer 
need the guidance of such laws as those of caste and ceremonies and 
sacrifice, for they have already reached far beyond them." — BuddhisfHy 
p. 59. 



144 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

" To cease from sin ; 
To get virtue ; 
To cleanse one's heart, — 
This is the Buddhist Law." 

The Beatitudes, — An elaboration of this formula is 
found in the beatitudes of Gautama, which are thus 
given : 

" Not to serve the foolish, 
But to serve the wise ; 
And to honor the honorable, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

"To enjoy, in a pleasant land, 
Good works done in a former life, 
With right desires in the heart, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

" Deep insight and education, 
Self-control and pleasant speech, 
And words thoughtfully spoken, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

" To support father and mother ; 
To cherish wife and child; 
To follow a peaceful calling, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

" To bestow alms and live righteously ; 
To give help to one's kindred ; 
To perform blameless deeds, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

** To abhor and cease from sin ; 
To abstain from strong drink; 
Not to be weary in well-doing, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

" Reverence and lowliness, 
Contentment and gratitude. 
Hearing the I^aw at due seasons,— 
This is the greatest blessing. 



BUDDHISM. 145 

** To be long-suffering and meek ; 
To associate with the pious ; 
To speak of religion at due seasons, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

*' Self-restraint and purity, 
The knowledge of the Noble Truths, 
The realization of Nirvana, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

" Beneath the stroke of life's vicissitudes 
To keep the mind unshaken, 
Without grief or passion, and secure, — 
This is the greatest blessing. 

*• On every side they are invincible 
Who perform such acts as these; 
On every side they walk in safety. 

And theirs is the greatest blessing." ^ 

1 The Ten Commandments of the Buddhist religion consist of the five 
prohibitions against — (i) killing, (2) stealing, (3) adultery, (4) false- 
hood, and (5) drunkenness; together with five others less binding — 
namely, against (6) eating at improper times, (7) wearing garlands and 
using perfumes, (8) sleeping on an easy bed, (9) singing, dancing and 
the drama, and (10) gold and silver. 

The Ten Sins are as follows: Three of the body: (i) murder, (2) 
theft, and (3) uncleanness; four of speech: (4) falsehood, (5) gossip, 
(6) swearing, (7) vain conversation; and three of the mind: (8) covet- 
ousness, (9) malice, (10) unbelief. 

The Duties of Men are classified under six relations, as follows: 

I. The Relation of Parent and Child. — (I.) Parents should (i) re- 
strain their children from vice, (2) train them in virtue, (3) teach them 
the arts and sciences, (4) provide them with good wives or husbands, 
and (5) leave them an inheritance. (II.) Children should (i) support 
their parents in old age, (2) perform all filial duties, (3) guard the 
family possessions, (4) study to be worthy of the inheritance, and (5) 
honor their parents' memory. 

II. Pupil and Teacher. — (I.) Pupils should honor their teachers (i) 
by rising in their presence, (2) by ministering to them, (3) by obeying 
them, (4) by supplying their wants, (5) by heeding their instructions. 
(II.) Teachers should show their affection for their pupils (i) by train- 

10 



146 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

The Morality of the Buddhists. — But the moral code 
of the sacred books must not be taken as a true index 
of the morality of the people. Little enough do they 
know of the Tripitaka ; still less do they regulate their 
lives by the maxims written therein. If we would 
know the practical results of the doctrine of Karma, 

ing them in the right way, (2) by teaching them to hold fast what they 
learn, (3) by instructing them in the wisdom of the ancients, (4) by 
speaking well of them, and (5) by protecting them from danger. 

III. Husband and Wife. — (I.) Husbands should (i) treat their wives 
with respect, (2) be kind to them, (3) be faithful to them, (4) defend 
their reputation, and (5) provide them suitable clothes and ornaments. 
(II.) Wives should show their love toward their husbands (l) by prop- 
erly training their children, (2) by suitably entertaining guests, (3) by 
preserving their chastity, (4) by being good housekeepers, and (5) by 
showing skill and industiy in all things. 

IV. Friend and Friend. — (I.) An honorable man will minister to 
his friends (i) by giving them presents, (2) by addressing them respect- 
fully, (3) by promoting their interests, (4) by treating them as his equals, 
and (5) by giving them a share of his prosperity. (II.) His friends 
should reciprocate (i) by watching over him when unguarded, (2) by 
protecting his property when he neglects it, (3) by affording him a 
refuge in danger, (4) by proving faithful to him in adversity, and (5) 
by befriending his loved ones. 

V. Master and Servant. — (I.) The master should (i) apportion the 
task according to his servant's strength, (2) pay him properly, (3) care 
for him in sickness, (4) sometimes give him delicacies, and (5) grant 
him a holiday on occasion. (H.) The servant must (i) rise up before 
his master, (2) retire later to rest, (3) be content with what he receives 
from him, (4) do his work cheerfully and well, and (5) always speak 
well of him. 

VI. Priest and Layman. — (I.) The priest should (i) dissuade the 
layman from vice, (2) exhort him to virtue, (3) entertain a sincere re- 
gard for him, (4) instruct him in religion, (5) clear up his doubts, and 
(6) point him to heaven. (II.) The layman must minister to his re- 
ligious superior (i) by affectionate deeds, (2) by affectionate words, (3) 
by affectionate thoughts, (4) by a hearty welcome, and (5) by generously 
supplying all his temporal wants. 



BUDDHISM. 147 

we must close the sacred books of Buddhism and 
enter its chambers of imagery — see woman degraded 
and crushed, held as an inferior being, her womanhood 
regarded as the penalty of sins committed in a pre- 
existent state, her only hope the possibility of being 
one day delivered from the curse by being born a 
man; or go out upon the highways and question 
the multitude of pilgrims who drag their slow length 
toward the sacred rivers. They have no more con- 
ception of true virtue, seemingly, than the irrational 
things that crawl beside them. They are driven on by 
Karma as by a whip of scorpions. Or " visit the cities 
of the dead, as at Canton, where tens of thousands lie 
unburied, waiting for a lucky day. Listen to the mid- 
night din of the superstitious masses who are ringing 
gongs and discharging fireworks to keep away the evil 
spirits. Watch the incantations over the sick, and 
honors paid to dead beggars to propitiate their ghosts, 
and the pampering of monkeys and doves and sacred 
pigs as a work of merit, while men and women die of 
starvation in the streets." This is Buddhism — not as 
it is in the Tripitaka, but as it appears in common life. 
In spite of its theoretical cleanness, it is practically vile. 
Says the Abbe Hue : ** The leprosy of vice has spread 
so completely through this skeptical society that the 
garment of modesty with which it covers itself is con- 
tinually falling off and exposing hideous wounds which 
are eating away the vitals of this unbelieving people." ^ 

^ " It is a melancholy fact that, in China, Buddhism has led the entire 
nation not only into indifferentism, but into absolute godlessness. They 
have come to regard religion as merely a fashion, to be followed accord- 



148 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

III. Nii^ana. — The third distinguishing feature of 
Buddhism is Nm^ana. This is the name of the Buddh- 
ist's only heaven. It is defined in glowing terms as 
'' the happy seat, — the excellent, eternal place ; the 
other side of the ocean of existence ; the harbor of 
never-ending rest, — the transcendental formless state, 
the truth, the infinite, the unspeakable." But under 
all these euphemisms lies the cold undoubted fact that 
Nirvana means total annihilation. This is the Buddh- 
ist's supreme wish. 

ing to one's own taste; that as professed by the state it is a civil institu- 
tion, necessary for the holding of office and demanded by society, but 
not to be regarded as of the smallest philosophical importance; that a 
man is entitled to indulge his views on these matters just as he is en- 
titled to indulge his taste in the color and fashion of his garments; that 
he has no more right, however, to live without some religious profession 
than he has a right to go naked. The Chinese cannot comprehend how 
there should be animosities arising on matters of such doubtful nature 
and trivial concern. The formula under which they live is : * Religions 
are many, reason is one ; we are brothers.' They smile at the credulity 
of the good-natured Tartars, who believe in the wonders of miracle- 
workers, for they have miracle-workers who can perform the most 
supernatural cures, who can lick red-hot iron, who can cut open their 
bowels, and, by passing their hand over the wound, make themselves 
whole again, — who can raise the dead. In China, these miracles, with 
all their authentications, have descended to the conjurer and are per- 
formed for the amusement of children. The common expressions of 
that country betray the materialism and indifferentism of the people, 
and their consequent immorality. * The prisons,' they say, * are locked 
night and day, but they are always full ; the temples are always open, 
and yet there is nobody in them.' Of the dead they say, with an ex- 
quisite refinement of euphemism, * He has saluted the world.' The 
Lazarist Hue, on whose authority many of these statements are made, 
testifies that they die, indeed, with incomparable tranquillity, just as 
animals die ; and adds, with a bitter, and yet profoundly true, sarcasm, 
* they are what many in Europe are wanting to be.' " — Draper's Intel- 
lectual Development of Europe y i. 74. 



BUDDHISM, 149 

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
And know, whatever thou hast been, 
'Tis something better — not to be." ^ 

The Japanese followers of Buddha have this proverb : 
** The worst thing you can wish a man is that he may 
live again/* There is, indeed, no acknowledgment of 
the existence of the soul as a thing distinct from the 
parts and properties which dissolve at death.^ " Our 

* Contrast with this the Christian sentiment : 
" Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
No life that breathes with human breath 
Has ever truly longed for death. 
'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant. 
Oh life, not death, for which we pant ; 
More life, and fuller, that we want." 
2 " Man consists of an assemblage of different properties or qualities, 
none of which corresponds to the Hindu or modern notion of the soul. 
These are material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of 
mind and mental powers; and as the point is a matter of great import- 
ance for a right appreciation of Buddhist teaching, and the enumera- 
tion is not without interest for its own sake, a few words may be de- 
voted to the details of each of these Skandhas or Aggregates : 

" [i.] The Material Properties or Attributes are twenty-eight in 
number : 

Four elements — earth, water, fire, air. 
Five organs of sense — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. 
Five attributes of matter — form, sound, smell, taste, substance. 
Two distinctions of sex — male, female. 
Three essential conditions — thought, vitality, space. 
Two means of communication — gesture, speech. 
Seven qualities of living bodies — buoyancy, elasticity, power of 
adaptation, power of aggregation, duration, decay, change. 
" [2.] The Sensations are divided into six classes, according as they 
are received immediately by each of the five senses, or, sixthly, by the 
mind (through memory) ; and further, into eighteen classes, as each of 
these six classes may be either agreeable, disagreeable or indifferent. 



150 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

life, to use a constantly recurring Buddhist simile or 
parable, is like the flame of an Indian lamp, a metal 

*' [3-] The Abstract Ideas are divided into six classes of sensations; 
for instance, the ideas blue, a tree, are classed under sight; the idea 
sweetness under taste, and so on. 

" [4.] The Tendencies or Potentialities (literally confections) are in 
fifty-two divisions, which are not, however, mutually exclusive. Some 
of these include, or are identical with, items in the previous classes; 
but whereas the previous groups are arranged as it were from an object- 
ive, this group is arranged as it were from a subjective, point of view ; 

1. Contact. 

2. The resulting sensation. 

3. Abstract ideas, foraied on sensation. 

4. Thought, the regrouping of ideas. 

5. Reflection, turning these groups over and over. 

6. Memory. 

7. Vitality. 

8. Individuality. 

9. Attention. 

10. Investigation. 

11. Effort. 

12. Steadfastness. 

13- Joy- 

14. Impulse. 

15. Indifference. 

16, 17. Sleep and torpor. 

18, 19. Stupidity and intelligence, 

20, 21. Covetousness and content. 

22, 23. Fear and rashness. 

24, 25. Shame and shamelessness, 

26, 27. Hatred and affection. 

28-30. Doubt, faith and delusion. 

31, 32. Repose of body or mind. 

2^2^, 34. Lightness, activity, of body or mind. 

35, 36. Softness, elasticity, of body or mind. 

37, 38. Adaptability, pliancy, of body or mind. 

39, 40. Dexterity, of body or mind. 

41,42. Straightness, of body or mind. 

43-45. Propriety, of speech, action or life. 



BUDDHISM. 151 

or earthenware saucer in which a cotton wick is laid 
in oil. One life is derived from another, as one flame 
is lit at another ; it is not the same flame, but without 
the other it would not have been." In other words, 
there is continuity, but no identity.^ Thus the Buddhists 

46. Pity, sorrow for the sorrow of others. 

47. Gladness, rejoicing in the joy of others. 

48. Envy, sorrow at the joys of others. 

49. Selfishness, dislike to share one's joys with others. 

50. Moroseness. 

51. Vanity. 

52. Pride. 

" [5.] Thought, reason, is the last Skandha, and is really an amplifi- 
cation from another point of view of the fourth of the last group, which 
is inherent in all the others. It is divided from the point of view of 
the merit or demerit resulting from different thoughts into eighty-nine 
classes — a division which throws no light on the Buddhist scheme of 
the constituent elements of being, and does not, therefore, concern us 
here." — Buddhism^ p. 90, abbreviated. 

^ An apt illustration of this continuity without identity is given by 
Maurice, as follows : " In Tibet, which must be regarded as the centre 
and proper home of the religion, the priests are called lamas ; it is they 
who decide who the Lama, the true high priest of the universe at any 
given time, is. I say they decide who he is, for they could never allow 
that the faculty of choosing the chief Lama resides in them. In some 
person or other the spirit of Buddha dwells ; he is meant to be the 
head of the universe ; to him all owe homage. This Lama, therefore, 
never dies ; he is lost sight of in one form, reappears in another. The 
body of some old man who has had this honor loses its breath, is laid 
in the tomb. The Lama has passed into some infant, who is brought 
up in a convent with special care, preserved from sensual influences, 
taught from the cradle to look upon himself as the shrine of the divinity, 
and to receive the homage of rajahs, nations, even of the Celestial Em- 
pire; nay, even of European monarchs. Some of you may remember 
to have read of a solemn embassy sent by the English government at 
Calcutta, in the days of Warren Hastings, to the court of the Lama. 
A very affecting letter had been addressed by him to the English au- 
thorities in India, asking iheir help in checking quarrels between cer- 



1 52 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD, 

speak of '' the heresy of individuality ;" and Buddha 
himself pronounced it heresy to speak of the eternity 
of the soul. It is obvious, therefore, that Nii^ana 
means merely extinction or annihilation. This, indeed, 
is the necessary sequence of the philosophy of Buddha. 
He said : '* There is nothing in life but sorrow ; all is 
perishable ; all is void ; to be is pain ; not to be is ever- 
lasting rest." The most desirable of all things, there- 
fore, is non-existence — *' to break through the prison- 
walls, not of life only, but of being." To this end 
transmigration — that is, the passage of life through an 
endless cycle of existence,^ which continues so long as 
there is conscious thirst or desire of any kind — must 
be prevented. 

''What shall I Do to be Saved T'— How shall this 
transmigration be prevented ? By the killing of desire. 
The intellect must conquer the heart; feeling must 
give way to meditation. The senses must be dulled. 
Nirvana is gained by the victory of sublime indiffer- 
ence to everything in life. 

" The heart, scrupulously avoiding all idle dissipation, 
Diligently applying itself to the Holy Law of Buddha, 

tain native sovereigns — an object, he said, which he sought diligently 
in prayers by day and night. An old man was. the author of this letter; 
before Mr. Turner, the English envoy, arrived he had left the world, 
and a child of eighteen months was acknowledged as his successor. It 
reigned by no hereditary right, but the other 'lamas presented him with 
unquestioning faith as the representative of the Perfect Intelligence, 
through whom it would most surely utter itself.'^ 

^ *< Transmigration is constantly called the ocean : its ever-tossing 
waves are births; the foam at the crest of the waves is this perish- 
able body; the other shore is Nirvana; having reached which, one 
does not again enter the great ocean of Sag-sara.'" — Buddhism, p. 136. 



BUDDHISM, 153 

Letting go all lust and consequent disappointment, 

Fixed and unchangeable, enters on Nirvana.^'' ^ — Davids. 

Struggling to release itself from all passion, life jour- 
neys on from home to home, from one mode of exist- 
ence to another, until its heart is numbed, eyes blinded, 
feeling dead, and the dreamer, inhaling the perfume 
of the lotus-flower, ere the dream ceases murmurs his 
farewell : 

" Thy rafters crushed, thy ridge-pole too, 
Thy work, O Builder, now is o'er. 
My spirit feels Nirvana true, 

And I shall transmigrate no more/' 

Sadness, — Is it to be wondered at that Buddhism is 
a religion of sadness ? that ** a night of hopelessness " 
has passed over all the peoples who profess it?^ 

* " He whose senses have become tranquil, like a horse well broken 
in by the driver ; who is free from pride and the lust of the flesh and 
the lust of existence and the defilement of ignorance, — him even the 
gods envy. Such a one, whose conduct is right, remains like the broad 
earth, unvexed ; like the pillar of the city-gate, unmoved ; like a pel- 
lucid lake, unruffled. For such there are no more births. Tranquil is 
the mind, tranquil are the words and deeds, of him who is thus tranquil- 
lized and made free by wisdom.*' — Buddhism^ pp. no, in. 

* " A lamentable instance of the failure of Buddhism seems to be 
afforded by the present condition of Japan. Travelers picture the 
Japanese as people without religion and without hope. A current and 
favorite proverb is that * the worst thing you can wish a man is to live 
again.' As the old faith has died out. there is nothing left but its un- 
conscious effects and the habits taught by it to stem the tide of selfish- 
ness; and the people seem given up, say very candid observers, to 
* licentiousness and untruthfulness,' while a deep shade of melancholy 
settles over all. The great doctrine of Sakya-Muni, that the * end of 
righteousness is rest,' has degenerated into the dogma that the 'end of 
righteousness is nothingness,' and a night of unbelief and hopeless- 
ness has fallen over a whole race." — Brace's Gesta Christie p. 456. 



154 ^-^^ RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Selfishness. — It must be obvious to the most careless 
observer that the philosophy of Buddha is the very 
consummation of selfishness. '' Since its object," as 
Draper says, '* was altogether of a personal kind, the 
attainment of individual happiness, it was not possible 
that it should do otherwise than engender an extreme 
selfishness. It enjoined on each man to secure his 
own salvation (or deliverance), no matter what became 
of all others. Of what concern to him were parents, 
wife, children, friends, country, so long as he attained 
Nirvana ?" The very benevolence which the Buddhist 
boasts is nothing more than a means toward the secur- 
ing of an utterly selfish end. His piety is pure self- 
worship, for beyond his own intellect he cannot con- 
ceive of God.^ 

^ " This grand moral system," says Dr. Eitel, " starting with the idea 
of the entire renunciation of self, ends in that downright selfishness 
which abhors crime, not because of its sinfulness, but because it is a 
personal injuiy; which sees no moral pollution in sin, but merely a 
calamity to be deprecated or a misfortune to be shunned." 

The following, to the same point, is from a conversation with a 
Buddhist priest in the temple at Kioto ( The Century magazine, July, 
1886): 

*' * What do you mean by 'wro7ig?' I asked. 

" * That which is not for the best.' 

" * Well, when my watch goes too fast or too slow, I say it is wrong : 
does it commit sin ?' 

" * I do not understand.' 

*' * When a tiger comes into the village and eats a man, it is not for 
the best, is it ?' 

*' ^ No.' 

*' * Does the tiger do right or wrong?' 

" ' He does right for the tiger and wrong for the man. It is best foi 
the tiger to eat the man — for the man to kill the tiger.' 

" * Is it wrong for one man to kill another ?' 



BUDDHISM. 155 

No Help from Above. — We observe a most striking 
difference between the system of Buddha and that of 
Jesus Christ in this : that, while the former bids its 
votaries work out alone and unaided their deliverance 
from the sorrows of life/ the latter says, *' Work out 

" * Yes.' 

" * And to lie and steal V 

" * Yes.' 

«*Why?' 

" * Because it destroys the harmony of the social relations. You must 
not hurt me, for then I would want to hurt you; and if all men lived 
in that way, there could be no peace. You must not lie to me, for then 
I should not know whether to do one thing or another, for I could not 
trust you.' 

" * So, then, I must not hurt you, for fear you might hurt me ?' 

" * Yes.' 

" * Is there no other reason ?' 

" * I do not know any.' 

" * Is there no rule of right which all men must follow ?' 

" * No ; if there were all men would think the same things bad. They 
do not. You think it is bad to have more than one wife ; some other 
nations do not. They think it is bad to drink anything which you 
drink. There can be no rule, but each nation finds out what is best 
for itself,' 

" ^ We, too,' said I, * think that things may be expedient for one 
nation which are not so for another, but deeds are right or wrong as 
they conform or do not conform to a rule, which is the will of our God; 
and those things of which we have spoken — lying, stealing, murder and 
such like — we agree with you in thinking wrong and hurtful to society, 
and we have commandments forbidding them. This we call our duty 
to man ; but besides that is there no other duty ?' 

" * I do not understand.' 

" * Do you owe nothing to Amida- Buddha ?^ 

"* Oh, no:'' 

^ The cold comfort which the Buddhist gets from his religion in time 
of trouble is well illustrated in the " Parable of the Mustard-seed : " 
** Kisagotami is the name of a young girl whose marriage with the only 
son of a wealthy man was brought about in true fairy-talc fashion. She 



1$6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you 
both to will and to do." The Buddhist stands with 
arms reached vainly out, the very prayer hushed upon 
his lips, his cold eyes fixed on Nirvana, the end of all. 
The Christian feels the overshadowing of divine love 
and the strength of everlasting arms beneath him ; he 
knows a present God. 

had one child, but when the beautiful boy could run alone he died. The 
young girl in her love for it carried the dead child clasped to her bosom, 
and went from house to house of her pitying friends asking them to 
give her medicine for it. But a Buddhist mendicant, thinking, * She 
does not understand,' said to her, * My good girl, I myself have no such 
medicine as you ask for, but I think I know of one who has.' — * Oh 
tell me who that is,' said Kisagotami. — * The Buddha can give you 
medicine; go to him,' was the answer. She went to Gautama, and, 
doing homage to him, said, * Lord and master, do you know any medi- 
cine that will be good for my child ?' — * Yes, I know of some,' said the 
Teacher. Now, it was the custom for patients or their friends to provide 
the herbs which the doctors required, so she asked what herbs he would 
want. * I want some mustard-seed,' he said ; and when the poor girl 
eagerly promised to bring some of so common a drug, he added, * You 
must get it from some house where no son or husband or parent or 
slave has died.' — ' Very good,' she said; and went to ask for it, still 
carrying her dead child with her. The people said, ' Here is mustard- 
seed, take it;' but when she asked, *In my friend's house has any son 
died or a husband or a parent or slave ?' they answered, * Lady, what 
is that you say ? The living are few, but the dead are many.' Then she 
went to other houses, but one said, * I have lost a son ;' another, * We 
have lost our parents;' another,*! have lost my slave.' At last, not 
being able to find a single house where no one had died, her mind 
began to clear, and, summoning up resolution, she left the dead body 
of her child in a forest, and returning to the Buddha paid him homage. 
He said to her, * Have you the mustard-seed ?' — * My lord,' she re- 
plied, « I have not ; the people tell me that the living are few, but the 
dead are many.' Then he talked to her on that essential part of his 
system — the impermanency of all things, till her doubt? were cleared 
away, and, accepting her lot, she became a disciple and entered the 
first path." — Bziddhism^ p. 133. 



BUDDHISM. 157 

" O heart ! weak follower of the weak, 

That thou shouldst traverse land and sea, 
In this far place that God to seek 
Who long ago had come to thee !" 

Ay, God is come down to us in the person of Him 
who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Buddhism 
has no Christ. Its spectre of a God is blind and heart- 
less. Man, guilty, penitent, despairing, reaches up, but 
there are no hands reaching down. 

" An immense solitary Spectre waits ! 
It hath no shape, it hath no sound, 
It hath no place, it hath no time ; 
It is, and was, and will be ; 
It is never more nor less, nor glad nor sad ; 
Its name is Nothingness. 
Power walketh high, and Misery doth crawl. 
And the clepsydron drips. 
And the sands fall down in the hour-glass ; 
Men live and strive, regret, forget, 
And love and hate, and know it. 
The Spectre saith, * / wait /' 
And at the last it beckons, and they pass ; 
And still the red sands fall within the glass, 
And still the water-clock doth drip and weep ; 
And that is all !" 

A writer in the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary for 
June, 1886, thus marks the leading contrasts between 
Christianity and Buddhism : 

" Christ taught the existence and the glory of God 
as supreme over all, the Creator, Upholder and Father ; 
Buddhism knows nothing of God or of anything like 
divine sympathy or help. 

" Christ claimed to be divine, God with us ; Gautama 



158 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

made no such claim to a divine nature or to divine 
power. 

*' Christ is represented as having been an equal 
sharer in the ineffable purity and glory of heaven; 
Buddha is said to have been once a hare and once 
a rat, and Mr. Arnold adorns the contest in which 
Siddartha strove with other princes for a beautiful bride 
with the legend that he once in like manner fought 
with his fellow-brutes of the jungle for a female tiger. 

" Christ by his atonement wrought a real and gen- 
eral salvation ; Buddha wrought nothing except for 
himself, and bade all others do the same. ' Be ye 
clothed and be ye fed ' was the only gospel he had 
to preach. 

" Christ held up the hopes of an immediate and 
eternal state of blessedness after death ; Buddha con- 
signed his followers to an almost endless career of 
strivings, with no real and positive happiness even at 
the goal. 

" Christ taught that life, though attended with fear- 
ful alternatives, is a glorious birthright, with promise 
of endless progress in all virtue and felicity ; Buddhism 
makes life an evil which it is the supreme end of man 
to conquer and virtually extinguish." 

*' It is the misfortune of our time," says Saint-Hilaire, 
*' that the same doctrines which form the foundation of 
Buddhism meet at the hands of some of our philoso- 
phers with a favor which they ill deserve. It is well 
that they should learn from this religion what becomes 
of man if he depends on himself alone, and if his medi- 
tations, misled by a pride of which he is hardly con- 



BUDDHISM. 159 

scious, lead him to the precipice where Buddha was 
lost/' 

The London Times not long ago observed that '' the 
teaching of Buddha is second only to the teaching of 
Christ." This was but an echo of a sentiment which 
of late has prevailed among so-called liberal thinkers. 
But let us be first just, then generous, toward this re- 
ligion. The simple truth is, that between the teach- 
ings of Christ and those of Buddha there is a gulf as 
wide and bridgeless as that which separates between 
God's holy of holies and the midnight region of despair. 
Let Sir Monier Williams, professor of Sanskrit at Ox- 
ford University, England, speak : 

" Let us, then, take Buddhism, which is so popularly 
described as next to Christianity. Let us for a moment, 
with all reverence, place Buddhism and Christianity in 
the crucible together. It is often said that Buddha's 
discourses abound in moral precepts almost identical 
with those of Christ. Be it so, but in fairness let us 
take a portion of Buddha's first sermon, which contains 
the cream of his • doctrine. I should like to read it 
from the translation which has just come out at Oxford. 
The Buddha, who is said to be second only to Christ, 
made use of these words : * Birth is suffering. Decay 
is suffering. Illness is suffering. Death is suffering. 
The presence of objects we hate is suffering. Separa- 
tion from objects we love is suffering. Not to obtain 
what we desire is suffering. Clinging to existence is 
suffering. Complete cessation of craving for existence 
is cessation of suffering ; and the Eightfold Path which 
leads to cessation of suffering is right belief, right aspi- 



l6o THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. 

ration, right speech, right conduct, right means of live- 
lihood, right endeavor, right memory, right meditation. 
This is the noble truth about suffering.' 

'' And now, with all reverence, I turn on the other 
hand to the first gracious words which proceeded from 
the mouth of the founder of Christianity as given by 
St. Luke : ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because 
he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to 
preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of 
srght to the blind; to set at liberty them that are 
bruised ; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' 
In contrasting these first utterances of two Eastern 
teachers, one of whom we Christians believe to be 
divine, I ask what is there of hope for poor suffering 
humanity in the first utterance of Buddha? Is it not 
more like a death-knell than a voice proclaiming good 
tidings of great joy to suffering sinners ? 

'' I feel that I am compelled to speak out on this 
occasion, even as I spoke out recently at Oxford in 
contrasting the Veda of the Brahmans with our own 
Holy Bible, for a kind of doctrine called Neo-Buddhism 
is spreading, I am sorry to say, in many places both in 
Europe and America, and also in India, where we hoped 
that Buddhism had been long extinct. 

*' This new doctrine magnifies Buddhism, as if, for- 
sooth ! it were a very rational sort of creed for an in- 
telligent man to hold in the nineteenth century. Yes, 
monstrous as it may seem, the gospel of our Saviour — 
the gospel of peace — is in some quarters giving place 
to the gospel of misery — the gospel of Buddha — and 



BUDDHISM, l6l 

the former seems to be becoming a little out of fashion 
here and there. The Buddhist gospel of misery is, I 
fear, in some places — certainly in India, where we hoped 
it was extinct — coming into vogue. But mark two or 
three more contrasts which I should like to place before 
you. In the gospel of the Buddha we are told that the 
whole world lieth in suffering, as you have just heard. 
In the gospel of Christ the whole world lieth in wicked- 
ness. * Glory in your sufferings ; rejoice in them ; make 
them steps toward heaven,' says the gospel of Christ. 
* Away with all suffering ! stamp it out, for it is the 
plague of humanity,' says the gospel of Buddha. * The 
whole world is enslaved by sin,' says the Christian gos- 
pel; *The whole world is enslaved by illusion/ says 
the gospel of Buddha. * Sanctify your affections,' 
says the one ; ' Suppress them utterly,' says the other. 
' Cherish your body, and present it as a living sacrifice 
to God,' says the Christian gospel ; ' Get rid of your 
body as the greatest of all curses,' says the Buddhist. 
' We are God's workmanship,' says the Christian gos- 
pel, * and God works in us, and by us, and through us;' 
'We are our own workmanship,' says the gospel of 
Buddha, * and no one works in us but ourselves.' 

" Lastly, the Christian gospel teaches us to prize the 
gift of personal life as the most sacred, the most pre- 
cious, of all God's gifts. * Life is real, life is earnest,' 
it seems to say, and it bids us thirst not for death, not 
for extinction, but for the living God ; whereas the 
Buddhist doctrine stigmatizes all thirst for life as an 
ignorant blunder, and sets forth, as the highest of all 
aims, utter extinction of personal existence." 
11 



I 



VI. 
THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 



Sacred Books : None. 

Poets and Philosophers. 
I. The Gods : Mythology. 

(i) Twelve Supreme or Olympic Gods. 

(2) The Superior Gods. 

(3) The Servile Gods. 

(4) Shadows. 

(5) Monsters. 
Central Thought : Nature. 

II. Philosophy : Founder, Thales, 
(i) The Academy; Plato. 

(2) Sophists. 

(3) Epicureans. 

(4) Stoics ; Zeno. 

(5) Cynics. 

(6) Skeptics. 

(7) Peripatetics. 

** What shall I do to be saved T' No answer. 



VI. THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 

A TRAVELER of the olden time, sailing up through 
the Saronic Gulf, would be charmed while yet a great 
way off by the shining splendors of Athens, ** the Eye 
of Greece,"^ and, drawing nearer, he would mark with 
ever-increasing wonder and admiration the beauty of 
its homes and temples lifting their white columns with 
golden adornments against the green and purple of the 
Hymettian range of mountains. In the foreground, 
though five miles inland, stood the Acropolis, crowned 
with the citadel for an helmet, from whose high summit 
a statue of Athene caught the morning light and scat- 
tered it far and wide from her uplifted shield. 

In like manner, as we approach our theme. The Re- 
ligion of the Greeks, we find ourselves encompassed 
and dazzled by the most perfect civilization the world 
has ever known. Art and science and literature en- 
joyed at once a golden age of a thousand years. The 
illustrious names of history seem massed together here. 
Of poets, Homer the godlike ; Hesiod, wearing the 
wreath of the Heliconian Nine ; Sappho, '' spotless, 

^ " On the ^gean shore a city stands — 

Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil — 
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts 
And eloquence, native to famous wits, 
Or hospitable in her sweet recess, 
City or suburban, studious walks and shades/* 

165 



1 66 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

sweetly-smiling, violet-wreathed /' Sophocles, " the 
bee ;" Anacreon, whose lips dropped honey ; ^schy- 
lus, the poet of wine ; and Euripides, of whom the 
famous epigram was written, 

" If it be true that in the grave the dead 
Have sense and knowledge, as some men have said, 
I'd hang myself to see Euripides.'* 

Of historians, Herodotus, the great father, and Thu- 
cydides and Xenophon. Of philosophers, the immortal 
three — Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, of whom more 
anon. Of mathematicians, Euclid, Archimedes, the 
inventor of the lever, and Eratosthenes, who was sur- 
named "measurer of the universe." Of artists, an 
endless roster, beginning with Phidias and Praxiteles. 
Of orators, Gorgias, -^schines and his great rival 
Demosthenes, 

" Whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will the fierce democracie, 
And fulmined over Greece to Artaxerxes' throne." 

What a roll-call ! Around such names for thousands 
of years have gathered the glories of Greece. We may 
not turn aside here into the broad field of general cul- 
ture which opens before us. We have to do only with 
the religion of Greece, her gods and her godlike men 
who sang and reasoned about them. On this let us 
attempt to converge our gaze as the traveler on that 
golden aegis of Athene, the symbol of an overruling 
and protecting — what? 

The Greeks a Religious People. — The Greeks were 
constitutionally religious. St. Paul began his sermon 



J 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE, 1 6/ 

on Mars' Hill by saying, "Ye men of Athens, I per- 
ceive that in all things ye are exceedingly devout." 
Their habits of thought were devotional. Their lan- 
guage, clear, stately and flexible, was peculiarly adapted 
to the expression of theological ideas. It was not a 
mere accident that the New Testament was written in 
Greek. 

Our theme falls naturally into a twofold division — 
namely, The Gods and The Philosophers. These can- 
not be treated separately, because the latter both log- 
ically and chronologically succeeded the former, com- 
ing upon the boards just in time to save a melodrama 
from degenerating into a farce. 

I. The Gods, or Mythology, — Far back in legendary 
times there came from the plains of Bactria in Mid- 
Asia, the motherland of religions, a wandering tribe, 
who, pursuing their journey northward, paddling from 
island to island, found their way at length across the 
-^gean into Greece. In course of time they forgot 
their birthland, and, wearing a golden grasshopper in 
their hair, called tho^msQlvQsAzctochthones ; that is, chil- 
dren of the soil. They had brought along with them 
a religion of nature akin to that of the Rig- Veda. 

Central Thought: Nature, — At this point we mark 
the leading characteristics of their mythology — viz. the 
deification of nature. Let us enter their Pantheon, the 
temple of their gods. Here we shall find Nature en- 
throned, the four elements deified, and sacrifices laid 
upon the altars of Storm and Season and Fruitful- 
ness. " The Greek moved," says Dr. Milligan,^ " amidst 
^ In Faiths of the World, 



l68 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the objects that nature presented to him, Hke a child or 
a young animal, to which everything with which it 
comes in contact is as full of life as itself. He listened 
to and endeavored to interpret her meaning as he would 
have listened to or interpreted a companion at play. 
He saw her act, he heard her speak, in every one of 
her departments. There was a rippling sound in the 
stream : it did not proceed from drops of water only ; 
it came from a living spirit in the stream, fair and 
sweet, singing with the waters as they tripped along. 
There was a rustling or a hollow sound in the wood : 
it was not simply produced by the movement of leaves 
or of branches ; it came from living spirits inhabiting 
the wood, who the one moment played in the breeze, 
the next moment sighed as the breeze freshened or 
groaned as it deepened into a gale. A rainbow glis- 
tened in the sky : it was not there by chance or inex- 
orable law; it was 

* A midway station given 

For happy spirits to alight 
Betwixt the earth and heaven.' " 

The source of supply for the Pantheon was thus in- 
exhaustible. Nature is the polytheist's treasure-trove. 
*' Not only had each mountain-chain and mountain-top 
a separate presiding god or goddess, but troops of 
oreads inhabited the mountain-regions and disported 
themselves among them ; not only was there a river- 
god to each river, a Simois and a Scamander, an 
Enipeus and an Acheloiis, but every nameless stream 
and brooklet had its water-nymph, every spring and 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. l6g 

fountain its naiad; wood-nymphs peopled the glades 
and dells of the forest regions ; air-gods moved in the 
zephyrs and the breezes ; each individual oak had its 
dryad. To the gods proper were added the heroes, 
gods of a lower grade, and these are spoken of as 
* thirty thousand in number, guardian demons, spirits 
of departed heroes, who are continually walking over 
earth, veiled in darkness, watching the deeds of men 
and dispensing weal or woe/ " ^ 

It is customary to divide the Greek Pantheon into 
five groups — namely : 

( 1 ) Tke Supreme or Olympic Gods, — These were twelve 
in number — six male (Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, 
Hephaestus and Hermes) and six female (Hera, Athene, 
Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia and Demeter). 

(2) The Superior Ones. — The vast multitude of su- 
perior gods, such as ^olus, Hyperion, Hades; the 
Graces, Muses, Furies, Fates ; the Nymphs, Naiads, 
Nereids, and the like. 

(3) The Dependent Ones. — The servile gods, such 
as Hebe the heavenly cup-bearer, Iris the messenger, 
and all the servants and handmaids of the superior 
gods. 

(4) The Shadowy Ones. — These played their part 
chiefly in the fabrications of the poets. They were 
such as Day and Night, Sleep and Darkness, Death 
and Retribution. 

(5) The Monsters. — These were marvelous or gro- 
tesque beings resulting from mismarriages among 
gods and men ; for example, the Cyclopes, the Harpies 

^ Rawlinson's Ancient Reii<^ions. 



I/O THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and Centaurs, Cerberus with his fifty heads, and in- 
numerable '^ gorgons, hydras and chimeras dire." 

Zeus. — The father of the gods was Zeus, or Zeus- 
pater, a deification of aether. Behold him reigning' 
among the high crags of Olympus ! Do clouds and 
darkness gather around its summit ? They are visible 
tokens of the anger of Zeus. The lightning is the flash 
of his eye : with his javelin, the thunderbolt, he hurls 
his enemy down the mountain-side. This is the great 
ruler of the upper heavens, the Primal Principle. As 
one of the early poets wrote : 

" Zeus, the mighty thunderer, is first, is last, 
Is head, is middle of all. 

He is the breadth of the earth, the height of the starry heavens, 
The depth of the sea, the force of untamed fire. 
The origin of all things, — 
One power, one god, the Supreme One.'* 

The expression " For we are also his offspring," used 
by St. Paul in his address to the philosophers (Acts 
17 : 28), and referred by him to certain of the Greek 
poets, is found in the following passage from Aratus, 
wherein the author pays eloquent tribute to this father 
of the gods : 

" With Zeus begin we — let no mortal voice 
Leave Zeus unpraised. Zeus fills the haunts of men, 
The streets, the marts ; Zeus fills the sea, the shores, 
The harbors. Everywhere we live in Zeus. 
We are his offspring too ; friendly to man. 
He gives prognostics ; sets men to their toil 
By need of daily bread ; tells when the land 
Must be upturned by ploughshare or by spade. 
What time to plant the olive or the vine, 
What time to fling on earth the golden grain. 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE, l/I 

For he it was who scattered o'er the sky 

The shining stars and fixed them where they are, 

Provided constellation? through the year 

To mark the seasons in their changeless course. 

Wherefore men worship him, the First, the Last. 

Their Father, Wonderful, their Help and Shield." 

Poseidon, — Next to the great All-Father was Posei- 
don, ruler of the sea. He was represented with locks 
flowing in the wind, and in his right hand a trident 
with which he stirred the ocean into billows. He was 
the sailors' god, invoked with hymns at the hoisting 
of the anchor and placated with prayers and sacrifices 
at the approach of the storm. 

Apollo, — Next was reckoned Apollo, a very terrestrial 
god, patron of the healing art and of eloquence, poetry 
and music. He was a ruler among men, curbing in 
their behalf " the fierce, flame-breathing steeds of day." 
His statue in the palace of the Vatican at Rome, 
known familiarly as the Apollo Belvedere, is remark- 
able not only for its artistic pre-eminence, but as an 
exposition of the early religious thought of Greece : 

" All, all divine ! no struggling muscle glows ; 
Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows. 
But, animate with deity alone, 
In deathless glory lives the breathing stone." ^ 

These three — Zeus, Apollo and Poseidon, represent- 

^ " But if we ask for the moral import of Apollo and his worship, we 
are speedily at a loss. Beyond the obvious truth that happiness is better 
than sadness, it is difficult to find any precept directly bearing on the 
moral welfare of man in his religion. He is the embodiment of a 
glorious natural power, not of a moral influence.'* — St. Paid in Greece, 
by Rev. G. S. Davies, M. A. 



1/2 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

ing Nature in her three provinces of heaven, earth and 
sea — formed the great triad of the Pantheon. By these 
were begotten the multitude of lesser gods. 

Hera, — Of the female divinities, the most important 
were Hera, Athene and Aphrodite. The first was the 
companion of Zeus and queen of the Olympian court, 
proud, haughty and passionate — a poor pattern for 
earthly dames.^ 

Athene. — In Athene we find '' the purest and highest 
creation of the Greek religious spirit." ^ She was the 
patron of home industry and of the quiet graces of 

^ " She does not present to us an elevated idea of female perfection, 
since, despite her exalted rank, she is subject to numerous female in- 
firmities. Mr. Grote notes that she is ^ proud, jealous and bitter.' Mr. 
Gladstone observes that she is passionate, wanting in moral elevation, 
cruel, vindictive and unscrupulous. Her mythological presentation was 
certainly not of a nature to improve the character of those women who 
might take her for their model, since, although she was possessed of 
certain great qualities — passion, fervor, strong affection, self-command, 
courage, acuteness — yet she was, on the whole, wanting in the main 
elements of female excellence — gentleness, softness, tenderness, patience, 
submission to wrong, self-renunciation, reticence. She was a proud, 
grand, haughty, powerful queen, not a kind, helpful, persuasive, loving 
woman. The mythology of Greece is in few points less satisfactory 
than in the type of female character v/hich it exhibits at the head of its 
pantheon." — Rawlinson. 

2 " In the ideal of Athene we have perhaps the purest creation of the 
Greek religion, and one in which, in spite of its imperfectness, the good 
probably greatly outweighed the bad in its effects upon the moral destinies 
of the people, offering to them at least the highest ideal of divine wisdom 
which was within the reach of a nation merely self-taught, and prepar- 
ing the mind of the people for their reception thereafter of the greatest 
and purest when it should be placed before them. It is impossible, 
however, even while we admit the great beauty of that myth by which 
the Greeks accounted for the creation (not simultaneous with, but sub- 
sequent to, other creation) of their divine wisdom, not to compare it 
with the picture drawn for us of the Divine Wisdom in the book of 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 1 73 

wifehood. She was reputed to have sprung full armed 
from the forehead of Zeus, and was intended originally 
to represent the dawn appearing in the east, rising, as 
it were, from the brow of the sky. 

Aphrodite, — Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love, 
was appropriately called the daughter of heaven and 
ocean. " The lights and shadows of the heavens, the 
tints of dawn, the tenderness of clouds, unite with the 
toss and curving of the wave in creating beauty — out- 
line of the sea, with light and color of the sky." Ten- 
nyson has written, 

" Aphrodite beautiful, 
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, 
With rosy slender fingers backward drew 
From her warm brow and bosom her deep hair 
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat 
And shoulder : from the violets her light foot 
Shone rosy white, and o'er her rounded form, 
Between the shadows of the vine-branches. 
Floated the golden sunlight as she moved." 

The Pantheon. — It would be vain, however, to at- 

Proverbs (written probably 1015 B. c.) when the Greeks were strug- 
gling with the darkness that surrounded even their clearest visions. In 
the words of the king of Israel, it is the Divine Wisdom which precedes 
all creation, and is itself the spring and fount of creation : * I was set 
up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When 
there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there were no foun- 
tains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before 
the hills, was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made the earth, 
nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he 
prepared the heavens, I was there : when he set a compass upon the 
face of the depth : when he established the clouds above : when he 
strengthened the fountains of the deep: when he gave to the sea his 
decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment : when he ap- 
pointed the foundations of the earth.' " — St. Paul in Greece, Rev. G. S. 
Da VIES, M. A. 



174 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

tempt to enumerate the gods. There were many- 
thousands of them. It was a trite saying that in 
Athens it was easier to find a god than a man. 
All Nature was populous with deities: in them, in- 
deed, she made herself known. "The Greek," says 
James Freeman Clarke, " went nowhere without find- 
ing some spot over which hung the charm of ro- 
mantic or tender association. Within every brook was 
hidden a naiad; by the side of every tree lurked a 
dryad ; if you listen you may hear the oreads calling 
among the mountains, or if you come cautiously 
around the bending hill you may catch a glimpse of 
great Pan himself When the moonlight showers filled 
the forests one might see the untouched Artemis glid- 
ing rapidly among the mossy trunks, while beneath, 
in the deep abysses, reigned the gloomy Pluto, with 
the sad Persephone homesick for the upper air. By 
the seashore Proteus wound his horn, the Sirens sang 
their fatal song among the rocks, the Nereids and 
Oceanides gleamed beneath the green waters ; and 
vast Amphitrite stretched her all-embracing arms.*' 
There were gods everywhere. All nature was ani- 
mated with divine life. 

The Gods Hiimanized, — As time passed on, however, 
the thought of nature was so enlarged as to take in 
human nature ; and at this point began the humaniza- 
tion of the gods. They were brought down from the 
clouds and forth from the shadowy dells and grottos, 
and made to take upon themselves the form and fashion 
of humanity. The Olympian gods were now simply 
men and women made after a large pattern and endowed 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 175 

with extraordinary gifts and graces. They ate and 
drank, labored and slept, made love and war. " They 
lived and laughed, and quarreled and strove and sinned 
in the Olympian commonwealth as if they had belonged 
to the Agora or to the purlieus of a Greek city. No 
doubt they were stronger and more beautiful than the 
inhabitants of earth; a finer blood coursed in their 
veins, and they were nourished by more heavenly 
food; but they made merry like revelers of earth upon 
their mountain-top, and when they descended from it 
to the world below they were often mistaken for mor- 
tal men." ^ They were, indeed, simply men " projected 
on the skies." 

Thus, in process of time the Greek mythology came 
down to the levels of common life. And herein lies 
the explanation of its swift decay and death. If a false 

^ Rev. William Milligan, D. D., in Faiths of the World. The same 
writer says : " The Greek had an inborn sense at once of the greatness 
and the beauty of man. During the earlier stages of his history he had 
been nursed amidst the active politics of the little state to which he be- 
longed and which maintained a proud independence of every other. 
At a later stage, when the different states of the same Hellenic blood 
felt the necessity of union, he cultivated the feeling of a common 
brotherhood at the Olympic or the Isthmian games, which were the 
very apotheosis of muscular strength and physical energy. A happy 
climate and a fruitful soil had developed into its most perfect form the 
frame which is often relaxed beneath the heat of a southern or cramped by 
the cold of a northern clime. The noblest productions, too, of the merely 
human intellect had appeared in Greece ; and it would be absurd to 
suppose that those whose poetry and art have delighted all other ages 
of the world should themselves have failed to perceive their sublimity 
and their gracefulness. Man, in short, considered merely as a being 
of this world, was to the Greek the expression of all that was best and 
brightest in his thoughts. What could he do but humanize his gods ? 
This, accordingly, was what he did." 



176 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

god is to inspire confidence, he must keep his distance. 
Let him come too near and he will show the leather 
and prunella. The people began to suspect that their 
gods were but a trifle better than themselves, and they 
smiled in each other's faces even as they laid their gifts 
upon the altar. This was the beginning of the end. 
One of the poets wrote : 

" Homer and Hesiod, whom we own great doctors of theology, 
Said many things of blissful gods that cry for large apology — 
That they may cheat and rail and lie, and give the rein to passion ; 
Which were a crime in men who tread the dust in mortal fashion." 

The Gods ImmoraL — It was true. The gods of 
Olympus were a company of revelers. Hermes was 
a thief; Aphrodite, a drab ; Athene, an adept at billings- 
gate ; Hera, no better than she ought to be ; and Zeus, 
their worthy sire, a base deceiver, who oftentimes drank 
too deeply of the mirth-inspiring nectar, quarreled with 
his guests, and was faithless to his wife, whom he " hung 
up in mid-heaven with anvils tied to her heels." ^ 

^^ Like GodSy like People!' — These being the gods, 
what should the people be ? Away from the solemn 
rites of nature-worship they were led by these human- 
ized deities into vanity of imagination and darkness of 
heart. The gods themselves were the great corrupters. 

^ " The gods of antiquity, particularly those of Greece, were of in- 
famous character. Whilst they were represented by their votaries as 
excelling in beauty and activity, strength and intelligence, they were 
also described as envious and gluttonous, base, lustful and revengeful. 
Jupiter, the king of the gods, was deceitful and licentious; Juno, the 
queen of heaven, was cruel and tyrannical. What could be expected 
from those who honoured such deities?" — The Ancient Church, W. D. 
KiLLEN, D. D. 



1 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 1 77 

" Wandering o'er the earth, 
By falsities and lies the greatest part 
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake 
God their Creator, and th' invisible 
Glory of Him that made them to transform 
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd 
With gay religions full of pomp and gold, 
And devils to adore for deities." 

Nor was this all. Not only were the altars defiled, but 
the lives of the worshipers were also debased and sen- 
sualized. 

" Like gods they lived, v^'ith happy, careless souls, 
From toil and care exempt. Nor on them crept 
Wretched old age ; but all their life was passed 
In feasting; and when they died, 
'Twas but as if they were o'ercome by sleep." 

Happy, sensual Greeks ! They lived, indeed, *' like 
gods ;" and what better could be expected of them ? 
They had no longer a serious ideal of manhood.^ There 

^ " One may, I think, fairly say that Homer means Achilles to be the 
hero of the Iliad ^ at any rate on the Greek side. He is, in eveiy sense, 
the most heroic of the Greeks, and may perhaps be quoted as Homer's 
ideal of what a hero should be. He lacks, therefore, many of the little- 
nesses which deface Agamemnon and others of the Greeks. Yet even 
at the moment of his highest achievement, his conquest of Hector in 
the single combat beneath the walls of Troy, he is represented to us in 
a light which makes us forget all other traits in him except the unspeak- 
able want of generosity toward a noble but fallen enemy. Nor is it 
possible that Homer should have so painted the choicest of his heroes 
if it was likely to have marred him so completely in the eyes of his then 
readers (or rather hearers) as it does in ours. Hector, failing fast, thus 
begs his conqueror to grant him the one favor that his dead body shall 
not be cast in dishonor to the dogs and vultures, but sent back to Troy 
to be buried by his relations. The Greek replies — addressing the dying 
man as * hound !' — that nothing would induce him to forego the pleasure 
12 



178 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

was a theatre in Athens provided with thirty thousand 
seats, and it is said to have been filled every day. 
Life was valued only for the pleasure that could be 
crowded into it. Mimnermus said : '' When the flower 
of youth is past it were better to die. Life without the 
golden-haired goddess is not worth living." 

Forms of Worship, — The worship of the Greeks was 
offered in sacrifices and prayers and festivals. The 
sacrifices were only for great emergencies. The pray- 
ers were genuine and instinctive breathings of desire. 
"They threw kisses to the gods upon their hands.'' 
But if we would see their religion at its best, and at 
its worst also, we must visit the festivals.^ These 
were held in the open air, with magnificent processions, 
dances, athletic sports, tournaments of poets and musi- 
cians, chariot-races and whatever else a pleasure-loving 
people could devise. The so-called " mysteries " were 

of leaving his hated enemy to the dogs, and that he only regrets that he 
cannot eat his flesh raw." — St. Paid in Greece, Davies, pp. 38, 39. 

^ " The Greek looked forward to his holy days as true holidays, and 
was pleased to combine duty with pleasure by taking his place in the 
procession or the temple or the theatre, to which inclination and religion 
alike called him. Thousands and tens of thousands flocked to each 
of the great Pan- Hellenic gatherings, delighting in the splendor and 
excitement of the scene, in the gay dresses, the magnificent equipages, 
the races, the games, the choric and other contests. * These festivals,' 
as has been well observed, * were considered as the very cream of the 
Greek life, their periodical recurrence being expected with eagerness 
and greeted with joy.' Similarly, though to a minor extent, each na- 
tional or even tribal gathering was an occasion of enjoyment; cheerful- 
ness, hilarity, sometimes an excessive exhilaration, prevailed ; and the 
religion of the Greeks, in these its most striking and obvious manifesta- 
tions, was altogether bright, festive and pleasurable." — Ancient Religions^ 
Rawlinson, p. 153. 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. Ijg 

closely connected with these diversions, and consisted 
mainly of striking representations, dramatic and other- 
wise, of the adventures of the gods.-^ All this was wor- 
ship. The poet sang the praises of Apollo ; the wrestler 
called on Hercules ; and the lewd dancers, flushed with 
wine, mingled the names of Bacchus and Aphrodite. 

This was the last chapter. Religion had become 
low comedy; the gods wore the buskins. Lucian 
began to write satires against them ; he was called 
*' blasphemer :" it mattered not ; he went on with the 
unmasking of the tricksters. Some one asks of He- 
raclitus : *' What do you hold human life to be ?" He 
answers, '* A child at play, handling its toys and chang- 
ing them with every changing whim." 

" And what are men ?" 
" Gods, but mortal." 

^ " The mysteries were certain secret rites practiced by voluntary asso- 
ciations of individuals, who pledged themselves not to reveal to the un- 
initiated anything which they saw or heard at the secret meetings. They 
were usually connected with the worship of some particular god, and 
consisted mainly in symbolical representations of the adventures and 
circumstances connected with the god in the mythology. They con- 
tained nothing that was contradictory to the popular religion, and little 
that was explanatory of it. The various mysteries had each its own 
apparatus of symbols and formularies, by which the mystce knew each 
other, as Freemasons do; but they only vaguely hinted at any theolog- 
ical dogmas or opinions. The Greek greatly affected these secret rites ; 
and it is said that but few Greeks were not initiated in some mystery or 
other. Their attraction lay in their veil of secrecy, transparent though 
it was; in the variety of feelings brought into play by lively dramatic 
representations ; in the rapid transition from anxiety and suspense to 
serenity and joy, and the combination of all arts and artistic enjoyments, 
of music and song, the mimic dance, the brilliant lighting up and effect- 
ive decoration." — Ancient Religions^ Rawlinson, pp. 154, 155. 



l80 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

**And the gods?" 

" The gods ? They are men, but immortal.'* 

III. Philosophy. — We come now to consider the phil- 
osophies. In time the degeneracy of the gods brought 
on an age of doubt and inquiry. The shrines were 
abandoned ; the fires slowly died out upon the altars ; 
and from the deep recesses of the forest the winds came 
wailing, " Great Pan is dead !" By the river-banks were 
planted groves and gardens ; on the hillsides porches 
were built, and among them walked thoughtful men 
wearing a new name — Philosophoi^ or '' lovers of wis- 
dom." These were the protestants of that day, who 
fearlessly approached the stalking ghosts and spectres 
of the popular religion and laughed them out of coun- 
tenance. They summoned the gods before the bar of 
reason and subjected the myths to critical analysis. 
Then came the inevitable : Anaxagoras was condemned 
to death for blasphemy, and a noble troop followed in 
his train ; Pericles was branded as a heretic for lifting 
his eyebrows at the Olympian fables ; and Socrates 
was doomed to drink the cup of hemlock. This is 
the universal law : the darkness begets death, and out 
of death comes newness of life. No falsehood is im- 
mortal. 

" The outworn rite, the old abuse, 

The pious fraud transparent grown, 
The good held captive in the use 

Of wrong alone, — 
These wait their doom, from that great law 
Which makes the past time serve to-day ; 
And fresher life the world shall draw 
From their decay." 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. l8l 

No age of reform is without its martyrs, but out of 
their dust arise armies that grasp the standard and go 
marching on. 

The mythology of Greece had been intended to meet 
the soul's demand for an object of worship ; but the 
philosophers, their eyes pained with looking upward 
into a voiceless and unwritten sky, turned their gaze 
away toward the origin of things. This was the ques- 
tion they sought to explain : *' Whence came the uni- 
verse and I ?" The starting-point of philosophy was 
doubt ; its first step was into illimitable paths of fear- 
less inquiry ; its hoped-for destination was truth. Once, 
and only once, the Greeks approached the realization of 
that hope when from the stone steps of the Areopagus 
they looked up into the face of Christ's apostle, half 
ready to believe the words that were falling from his 
fire-touched lips. 

It will not be unprofitable to note some of the more 
illustrious names of those who were identified with this 
philosophic movement, this grander quest than of San 
Greal or the Golden Fleece. 

The Founder, Thales. — The founder of philosophy 
was Thales, about 600 b. c. He devoted his attention 
to physical science, beginning with the assumption that 
water is the First Principle. His intention, probably, 
was to establish an alliance between philosophic re- 
search and the popular faith in Oceanus as one of the 
parent gods. An advance was made when Pythagoras 
asserted that the First Principle of all things is num- 
ber. He was the inventor of the multiplication table. 
One of his cardinal precepts was, "All comes from 



l82 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

one," or, in other words, *' God embraces all, inspires 
all, and is only One." Here is an example of this 
teacher's golden verses, and the gold is lustrous still : 

** Ne'er suffer thine eyes to close 
Before thy mind hath run 
O'er every act and thought and word 
From dawn to set of sun." ^ 

Out of the researches and speculations of such 
pioneers came the Seven Schools of Philosophy — 
namely : 

(i) The Academy. — Socrates was the discoverer of 
conscience among the Greeks and the founder of 
ethical science. He denounced the gods, asserted 
that virtue is the most desirable thing, and was an 
enthusiast in the pursuit of truth. He said : *' I have 
uttered some things of which I am not altogether con- 
fident ; but I am ready to contend to the utmost of 
my ability, in word and deed, to prove that we shall 
be better and braver and less helpless if we think that 
we ought to inquire than we can possibly be in the 
indulgence of the idle fancy that there is no knowing 
and no use in searching after what we know not." He 

^ " With such perfect confidence did his disciples regard their master, 
who usually gave his instructions from behind a thick curtain, that when 
any one called their doctrines in question they deemed it sufficient to 
reply, * He said so ' {ipse dixit). Indeed, they invested him with super- 
natural powers, nor, according to his early biographies, did he deny the 
soft impeachment. On one occasion, we are told, to convince his pupils 
that he was a god he showed them his thigh, which was of gold, and 
declared that he had assumed the form of humanity only the more 
readily to impart his letters to mankind." — Quackenbos's Ancient 
Literature, 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 1 83 

had also vague dreams of immortality. In prison he 
said : " A man that hath arrayed his soul in its own 
proper jewels — which are wisdom, temperance, courage 
and justice — is prepared to go at the appointed hour 
on his journey to the other world." And with the 
hemlock at his lips he said to his weeping friends, *' I 
take comfort in the hope that something remains of 
man after death.'' 

But Socrates himself founded no school ; it was left 
for his disciple Plato to establish the Academy, where 
he was accustomed to walk among the plane trees dis- 
coursing on the four cardinal virtues^ and on the prob- 
lems of immortality and a personal God. He was a 
loyal follower of Socrates, but his life was purer and 
his eyes were clearer to see within the veil. Over the 
doorway of his lecture-room was written, *' Let no one 
enter here who is a stranger to the symmetry of a vir- 
tuous life." 

(2) The Sophists^ a favorite school in Athens. These 
were the " word-snapping quibblers " who denied that 
there was any radical difference between right and 
wrong, and who devoted themselves to the task of 
" making the worse appear the better reason." With 

^ " Plato was an enthusiast in the pursuit of truth. He believed in a 
personal God, rational, immutable, eternal. He realized that man could 
never attain absolute wisdom, possible to God alone, and looked upon 
philosophy as * a longing after heavenly wisdom.' He sought to cor- 
rect abuses, to elevate humanity, and made man's highest duty consist 
in searching out God and imitating the perfection of the Almighty as his 
rule of conduct. The four cardinal virtues were wisdom, temperance, 
courage and justice ; but none could be virtuous without aid from on 
high." — QuACKENBOS's Ancient Literature, p. 243. 



1 84 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

them originated the saying, '* Might makes right," 
They undertook to prove ** that knowing one thing 
is knowing everj^hing, and there is no such thing as 
knowing an\iJiing at all ; that as the beautiful exists 
by the presence of beaut}', so a man becomes an ass 
by the presence of an ass ; and so on, ringing myriads 
of changes, like the fools in Shakesf>eare, upon these 
quirks of jugglery." A satirist, pointing to their 
grove, said: 

" That's the great thinkiiig-school of the new philosophy ; 
There live the men who teach that heaven around us 
Is a vast oven, and we the charcoal in iL 
And they teach also — for a consideration, mind yon — 
To plead a cause and win it, ri^t or wrong." ^ 

(3) TIu Epiaireans, or school of Epicurus. They 
were materialists, holding that matter is the sum and 
substance of all, and that the apparent order of the 
universe is the result of a fortuitous concourse of 
atoms. This obviously rules out God, immortality 
and moral responsibility. The philosophy of Epicurus 
finds its monograph in the maxim, "Let us eat and 

* " What shall we say of such a system and snch a state of things ? 
Simply this : that it indicated a complete mental and social demoraliza- 
tion — mental demoralization, for the principles of knowledge were sap- 
ped, and man was persuaded that his reason was no guide ; social demor- 
alization, for he was taught that right and wrong, virtue and vice, con- 
science and law and God, are imaginary fictions ; that there is no harm 
in the commission of sin, though there may be harm, as assuredly there 
is folly, in being detected therein; that it is excellent for a man to sell 
his country to the Persian king, provided that the sum of money he 
receives is large enough, and that the transaction is so darkly conducted 
that the public, and particularly his enemies, can never find it ouL*'^ 
DraP£&'s Intelkaual Devclopnumt of Europe y L p. 136. 



J 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE, 1 85 

drink, for to-morrow we die." He made expediency 
the test of action ; he said, " We are governed by 
chance; pleasure is the highest good; death ends all." ^ 
(4) The Stoics. — This school was founded by Zeno, 
who taught the precise opposite of the Epicurean sys- 
tem. The latter made expediency the supreme pur- 
pose ; in the philosophy of Zeno the chief end of man 
was to adjust his life to the order of nature.^ There is 
nothing higher than duty, nothing more heroic than 
mastery of self The Stoics were sublime egotists. 
They were also predestinarians of the straitest sect. 
Zeno's slave, detected in stealing, cried out, " O mas- 
ter, I am a Stoic ; it was fated that I should steal." — 
" Yes," retorted his master, *' and it was also fated that 

^ " In its best shape Epicureanism was little better than a prudent 
selfishness ; in its worst it degenerated into vice. In St. Paul's day the 
Epicureans were like the Sadducees, the pleasure-loving men of the 
world, who adopted the principle, but repudiated the example, of their 
master. The physical philosophy of Epicurus produced the sublime 
poem of Lucretius, but in the spirit and tone of his morality, in his 
austere and intense moral earnestness, Lucretius was far more of a 
Stoic than an Epicurean. The genial and pleasant Horace was an 
Epicurean, but the type of life which Horace preaches is lower than 
that of his teacher. Or take as the representative of the better class 
of Epicureans in Roman times, of men who understood how to seek 
pleasure in a refined, gentlemanly way, declining every public duty and 
living a life of lettered ease, Atticus, the friend of Cicero. Him Sir 
James Mackintosh has called in language not one whit too severe, ' the 
accomplished, prudent, friendly, good-natured time-server, Atticus, the 
pliant slave of every tyrant, who could kiss the hand of Antony, im- 
brued as it was in the blood of Cicero.' " — St. Paul at Athens y Shake- 
speare, pp. 120, 121. 

^ " The ethical theory of the Stoics may be summed up as consisting 
in the subordination of our instinctive love of pleasure and instinctive 
shrinking from pain to obedience to the moral order revealed in the 
world." — Ibid.y p. 132. 



1 86 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD, 

you should be flogged for it." Taken for all in all, the 
Stoa, or ** Painted Porch," was the most admirable of 
the schools. Its spirit finds expression in the soliloquy 
of Archilochus : 

" My soul, my soul ! by cares past all relief 

Distracted sore, bear up, with manly breast 
And dauntless mien, each fresh assault of grief 

Encountering. By hostile weapons pressed, 
Stand firm. Let no unlooked-for triumph move 

To empty exultation, no defeat 
Cast down. But still let moderation prove 

Of life's uncertain cup the bitter and the sweet." ^ 

(5) The Cynics, — These were misanthropes. Their 
greatest name was Diogenes, who affected the manners 
of a lazy vagrant.^ They professed to entertain a pro- 

^ " Zeno brought into use the method of refuting error by the reductio 
ad absurdum. His compositions were in prose, and not in poetry as 
were those of his predecessors. As it had been the object of Par- 
menides to establish the existence of *the One,' it was the object of 
Zeno to establish the non-existence of * the many.' Agreeably to such 
principles, he started from the position that only one thing really exists, 
and that all others are mere modifications or appearances of it." . . . 
** He furnishes us with an illustration of the fallibility of the indications 
of sense in his argument against Protagoras. It may be here intro- 
duced as a specimen of his method : * He asked if a grain of corn or 
the ten-thousandth part of a grain would, when it fell to the ground, 
make a noise. Being answered in the negative, he further asked 
whether, then, would a measure of corn. This being necessarily 
afiirmed, he then demanded whether the measure was not in some 
determinate ratio to the single grain ; as this could not be denied, he 
was able to conclude either, then, the bushel of corn makes no noise 
on falling, or else the very smallest portion of a grain does the same." — 
Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, i. pp. 122, 123. 

2 " He may be considered as the prototype of the hermits of a later 
period in his attempts at the subjugation of the natural appetites by means 
of starvation. Looking upon the body as a mere clog to the soul, he 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE, 1 8/ 

found contempt for the affairs of the world and the 
opinions of men. Their philosophy is aptly said to 
have been "steeped in gall." 

(6) The Skeptics^ or Agjwstics, founded by Pyrro. 
They glorified doubt. " All things are uncertain ; 
there is no standard of truth." ". We assert nothing," 
said they, '' no, not even that we assert nothing." 
" Sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short." This 
is the philosophy of despair. 

(7) The Peripatetics, founded by Aristotle. He orig- 
inated the inductive method of reasoning — /. e, from 
particulars to universals ' — which is the opposite of the 

mortified it in every possible manner, feeding it on raw meat and leaves 
and making it dwell in a tub. He professed that the nearer a man 
approaches to suicide the nearer he approaches to virtue. He wore 
no other dress than a scanty cloak ; a wallet, a stick and a drinking- 
cup completed his equipment ; the cup he threw away as useless on 
seeing a boy take water in the hollow of his hand. It was his delight 
to offend every idea of social decency by performing all the acts of life 
publicly, asserting that whatever is not improper in itself ought to be 
done openly. It is said that his death, which occurred in his ninetieth 
year, was in consequence of devouring a neat's foot raw. From his 
carrying the Socratic notions to an extreme he merits the designation 
applied to him, * the mad Socrates.' His contempt for the opinions of 
others and his religious disbelief are illustrated by an incident related 
of him, that, having in a moment of weakness made a promise to some 
friends that he would offer a sacrifice to Diana, he repaired the next 
day to her temple, and, taking a louse from his head, cracked it upon 
her altar." — Draper's Intellectual Developjuent of Europe, i. p. 150. 

^ " The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that of 
Plato, whose starting-point was universals, the very existence of which 
was a matter of faith, and from these he descended to particulars or 
details. Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to universals, 
advancing to them by inductions ; and his system, thus an inductive 
philosophy, was in reality the true beginning of science." — Ibid., i. 
p. 176. 



iSa THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

method of Plato. The latter was an idealist ; Aristotle 
was a materialist, holding nothing true w^hich could 
not be demonstrated, and therefore rejecting as unsub- 
stantial all the great verities of the eternal world. 

We have thus hastily glanced at the various systems 
of philosophy that arose and flourished in Greece at 
one time or another during her thousand golden years. 
Here was a great step onward from the Bacchanalia and 
the Olympic games. The Greeks were beginning to 
feel after God, if haply they might find him. Yet how 
dim were their eyes ! One of the philosophers said 
God was fire; another, water; another, air; another 
said, 

** All eyes, all ears, all thought is God, the Omnipresent Soul." ^ 

It was demanded of Simonides by the king of Syracuse 
that he should define God. After weeks of meditation 
he answered, " The more I think of him, the more he 
is unknown." To this inglorious result had their phil- 
osophy come in its ten centuries : its best summary at 
the beginning of the Christian era was an interroga- 
tion-mark. And Paul said, *' As I passed by and be- 

^ " The idea of one Supreme God, combining all the attributes of 
divinity — omniscience, omnipotence, wisdom, love — was, by the very 
nature of the case, excluded, from the range of Greek religious compre- 
hension ; and although some of those great searchers after truth, such 
as Socrates, obtained a very feeble and far-off glimpse of such an exist- 
ence, it was confined to but a few whose vision by the honest search 
for truth may be said to have been purified. The higher view of divine 
agencies which was thus called into existence by a few of the greater 
minds of Greece became the property of those who followed philosophy, 
rather than of the orthodox followers of the national creed." — St, Paul 
in Greece^ Davies, p. 67. 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 1 89 

held your devotions, I found an altar with this inscrip- 
tion : To the Unknozvn God!' 

We may search never so closely into these various 
systems, and we shall nowhere find a definite creed as 
to the great truths of the eternal world, not even an 
answer to the question, " If a man die, shall he live 
again ?" The fact of personal responsibility, which 
lies at the base of all political and social order, is pred- 
icated with an if. And when a poor sinner comes 
pleading, *^ Who shall deliver me ?" the oracles are 
dumb. 

The Maxims of the Seven Wise Men, — This, there- 
fore, was no religion in any proper sense, for there was 
no uplifting of the soul to God. Let us observe the 
maxims of the Seven Wise Men : 
That of Solon was " Know thyself;" 
Chilo, " Consider the end ;" 
Thales, " Who hateth suretyship is sure ;'* 
Bias, *' Most men are bad ;" 
Cleobulus, " Avoid extremes ;'* 
Pittacus, " Seize time by the forelock ;" 
Periander, *' Nothing is impossible to in- 
dustry/' 
In these seven epigrams was supposed to reside the 
concentrated wit and wisdom of the various schools ; 
but, however much of worldly sagacity or shrewdness 
we may discover in them, of religion there is none. 
The Morality of the Greeks. — And there was little or 
no morality in Greece. Can a man gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles ? The two ages of mythology 
and philosophy were equally barren as to right methods 



igO THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

of life. Athens in the day of her greatest prosperity 
and culture was a city of magnificent vices. Society 
was polluted through and through. Demetrius says : 
*' There was not in Athens, in my time, one great or 
noble mind." The women were divided into two 
classes, courtesans and drudges. Divorces were so 
frequent as to be counted boastfully by rings on the 
fingers. Infanticide was also of common occurrence, 
and was formally approved by Aristotle and Plato. 
Indeed, the philosophers themselves, with scarcely an 
exception, are, out of their own mouths, convicted of 
beastly vices and uncleannesses.^ The crime of Lesbos 
was theirs, insomuch that Plutarch, in his treatise on 
the education of boys, declares that parents wishing 
their children to be pure must not allow them to form 
the acquaintance of philosophers. The establishment 
of an Athenian gentleman must be furnished with 
cooks, jesters and a liarem. '' I suppose it to be lit- 
erally true," says Professor Seelye, *' that no vice nor 
crime nor cruelty can be named which did not show 
itself at home in the highest circles of this most bloom- 
ing society of the ancient world." ^ 

^ " ' We despise,' says an early Christian writer, * the supercilious 
looks of philosophers, whom we have known to be the corrupters of 
innocence, adulterers and tyrants, and eloquent declaimers against vices 
of which they themselves are guilty." — Dr. Killen, from Minucius 
Felix. 

2 " And what shall we say of Socrates and Plato? There have been 
many who have ventured to place Socrates by the side of Christ; and 
Socrates was great and noble and wise, and his death is one of the most 
moving scenes of ancient history. Let us not breathe one word against 
that holy and high-souled sage, but the truth is dearer to us even than 
Socrates; and when we think of Socrates conversing with Theodota 



li 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. I9I 

And why not? What shall we look for in a society 
where right and wrong, duty and expediency, virtue 
and vice, are regarded as mere conventional terms ? 

or feasting with Agathon, — when we remember the mingled leniency 
and coarseness with which he spoke of the sins of Critias, — when we 
recall his cold and almost impatient dismissal of his wife and children 
at his hour of approaching death; and then, with bowed head, think 
of Him who talked by the well-side with the woman of Samaria or 
stood alone by that guilty adulteress as she sobbed upon the temple 
floor, — or who, as he hung upon the cross between the thieves, chose 
out the tenderest-hearted of his disciples and in the midst of his an- 
guish said to his mother, * Woman, behold thy son^ — then, indeed, if our 
spiritual sense be not utterly blunt and dead, we may see how infinite 
is the gulf which separates the teacher of Athens from the Son of God. 
"And Plato — the "• divinus ilk Plato'' oi Arnobius — the Plato of 
whom Clement said that he touched the very gates of truth — the Plato 
whom Jerome carried with him under his hermit mantle and Augustine 
under his bishop's robe — the Plato whom our own Coleridge called ' a 
plank from the wreck of Paradise cast upon the shores of idolatrous 
Greece ' — we all know the depth of his insight, the subtlety of his rea- 
soning, the splendor of his imagination, the magic of his style ; and yet 
when we think how overwhelming would have been the shock to our 
moral sense, how fatal the overthrow of our distinctions between right 
and wrong, had he been accepted as the world's teacher; when we place 
the Phcedrus or the Symposiam, with all their poetic eloquence and all 
the subtly dangerous poison of their perfumed but unwholesome air, 
beside the sweet, pure, simple books of the humble fishermen of 
, Galilee, — when we compare his ideal republic with its community 
of women, its destruction of the family, its degradation of the mul- 
titude, its exposition of children, its tolerated and worse than tolerated 
crimes, with the kingdom of heaven as preached by Christ, — then must 
we not see in such a comparison, unless made by way of contrast, I 
will not say a gross injustice, but I will say, for so it is, an unwarrantable 
blasphemy against the simple truth? Ay, my brethren, the most golden 
idol of pagan excellence stands but on feet of clay. There is flagrant 
intellectual error in their very wisest ; there is fearful moral aberration 
in their very best. Over their graves, as in the sigh of the wailing wind, 
we hear the words, * The world by ivisdom knew not God? " — Farrar's 
Witness, 139- 141. 



192 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

In process of time Greece with her gods and reasoners 
was brought into contact with the higher faith. Look 
at this picture of Paul preaching to the newsmongers 
and philosophers ! Little did they dream that this man 
of unimposing presence, whom they thought to be a 
setter-forth of two strange gods, Jesus and Anastasis, 
was preparing the way for the ultimate rending asunder 
of their whole religious fabric.^ For hundreds of years 
thereafter the two systems existed side by side, but at 
length the thunders of Zeus were hushed and the colos- 
sal figures of the philosophers grew dim before the 
brighter presence of the Man of Nazareth, until, as 
Goldwin Smith has said, " Greece arose from the dead 
with the New Testament in her hand." It is a notable 
fact that the Greeks received the gospel more readily 
than any other people. It was, perhaps, because they 
needed it more. To the wise among them it seemed 
foolishness, but to those who were weary of reaching 
forth the hand of Tantalus and of performing the futile 

1 " From the day that his foot first touched their shores, and that his 
voice was first heard in their cities, the religion that had once held some 
of the greatest minds of ancient Greece under its influence was doomed 
to pass away from the minds of men for ever except as a harmless mem- 
ory. It was no mean task to sweep away even the ruins of a faith 
which was so connected with the glories of the past. It was to be still 
the work of centuries to remove them from the soil where they had so 
long been venerated. In so doing there was far more to be got rid of 
than the fallen masses of the building itself: there was a close and com- 
plicated growth of philosophy, mythology, national tradition, national 
associations, which clung together in a thick, impenetrable mass of ivy 
and creeper, bindweed and brier, wild flower, thicket and shrub, amongst 
which appeared, half hidden and deep sunk into the soil, the time- 
worn ruins of the old Greek religion." — St. Paul in Greece^ Davies, 
p. 57. 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. I93 

task of Sisyphus it was the very wisdom and power 
of God. 

These people had fed upon husks so long that they 
came to the Father's table as to a feast of fat things 
and wine upon the lees. No Bible, even, had been 
theirs, for theirs was the only great nation that had 
no sacred books. Think of the wretchedness of 
being without a word from God! And when they 
prayed, it was as if they cast their longings to the 
winds. For their gods took no interest in their wel- 
fare, cared naught for their troubles, but dwelt afar off 
on the Olympian heights, 

" haunting 
The lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind, 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm." 

" What shall I Do to be Saved V — This was a religion 
that could not satisfy the cravings of the heart. It 
knew no duty nor self-denial. It put upon the pas- 
sions no effectual curb. It uttered no warning as to 
the future, and, with all the gladness of its festivals, it 
left the doorway of the tomb shrouded in unbroken 
night. And, above and beyond all, it gave no answer 
to the cry, " What shall I do to be saved — saved from 
sin and shame and eternal death?" 

It was indeed a preparation for better things in that 
it awakened a sense of utter guilt and helplessness. 
The moral poverty and wretchedness of the whole 

13 



194 THE RELIGIOXS OF THE WORLD. 

nation found a voice on the lips of those Greeks who 
went up to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover say- 
ing, '* We would see Jesus." 

What, then, is our lesson ? Philosophy cannot save. 
The world by wisdom knew not God. And culture 
cafinot save. At the very moment when Zeuxis was 
painting the walls of Athens with a beauty which mod- 
ern art has sought in vain to imitate — when Socrates 
was theorizing about virtue — the social life of Greece 
stank with rottenness. And the gods went on feasting. 
How weird is the lament of lo ! — 

" Eleleu 1 Eleleul 
How the spasm and the pain, 
And the fire on my brain 

Strike burning through I — 
How my heart in its terror is spuming my breast ! 
And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest. 
On the sea of desolate fate !" 

It was Prometheus chained to the rock ; it was Ixion 
on the wheel ; it was Tantalus in hell. 

We hear it asserted in some quarters that natural 
religion is enough for the soul. It were a sufficient 
answer to point backward to the bewildered and de- 
spairing Greeks. They had all that nature could sug- 
gest or the human intellect devise, and yet they were 
without God and without hope. They searched for 
truth as blind men groping for the wall. Verily, the 
world by its own wisdom knoweth not God. A recent 
writer (Dr. Milligan of the University of Aberdeen) 
says : " Never had the thought of the natural dignity 
of man and the sacredness of human feelings a better 



THE RELIGION OF GREECE. 1 95 

opportunity to show what they can do for humanity 
than they had in Greece. The result was disastrous, 
humiHating, melancholy failure. A corruption was 
nourished in the Greek world which gradually sap- 
ped the foundations of its life. ... It has been said 
by an eloquent writer of the day that what concerns 
us at the present time is to learn how to face the prob- 
lems of the world with Greek serenity. If we have 
nothing more to face them with, we shall sink before 
them as Greece did. The great question is, Where is 
that divine life to be found which faces all problems 
without sinking? Is it to be found in nature or in 
Christ ? Greece answers that question. She sought it 
and found it in nature ; and she perished. The search 
for the divine in nature alone led to self-abasement, and 

* Self-abasement paved the way 
To villain bonds and despot sway.' " 

We turn from the coldness and barrenness of nature- 
worship on the one hand and philosophy on the other 
— from dumb, sightless gods and impotent dreamers 
all — to the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Here is a God whose eyes run to and fro 
through all the earth, and whose ears are attentive 
to the cry of the least of his little ones. His name 
is Love. God-love was never dreamed of in Greek 
philosophy, but here it glows as tender and beautiful 
as that of a mother bending over her sleeping child. 
*' God so loved the world.'' Blessed be his name ! 
And there is a sunlit path leading into his very pres- 



196 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

ence — the royal way of the cross, the path for you 
and me.^ 

^ " Yes, it was of God, and they could not overthrow it ; the catacomb 
triumphed over the Grecian temple ; the cross of shame over the wine- 
cup and the Salian banquet, the song of the siren and the wreath of 
rose. 

" These obscure sectaries — barbarians, Orientals, Jews as they were — 
fought against the indignant world and won. * Not by power, nor by 
might, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts ' — by heroic endurance, 
by stainless innocence, by burning zeal, by inviolable truthfulness, by 
boundless love. The world's seductive ideals and intoxicating joys, the 
world's enchanting mythologies and dissolute religions — young Dionysus, 

' As he burst upon the East 
A jocund and a welcome conqueror, 
And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea 
She rose and floated in her pearly shell, 
A laughing girl,' 

all fled before a cross of wood ! Yes, my brethren, because that cross 
was held by the bleeding hands of the world's true King, who perfected 
the strength of his followers in weakness, and, having been lifted up, 
drew all men unto him." — Farrar's Witness^ pp. 106-108. 



VII. 

THE RELIGION OF THE 
NORSEMEN. 



I. Sacred Books : The Two Eddas. 
II. Theology : 

(i) The Gods; 

Odin, the All-Father. 
The Twelve yEsir : 

Thor, Heimdall, 

Baldur, Hodur, 

Njord, Vidar, 

Frey, ^'ali, 

Tyr, Ullur, 

Bragi, Forseti. 

Loki. 

]\linor Powers. 

(2) The Creation. 

(3) The Future ; 

Ragnarok. 
Heaven and Hell. 

III. For 7ns of Worship, 

IV. Morals. 

Cefitral Thought: Courage. 
'* What shall I do to be saved f Fi^ht a crood fij^ht. 



VII. NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 

The Norsemen. — The fair-haired Norsemen came orig- 
inally from Bactria in Central Asia, the prolific mother- 
land of nations. The memory of the warm suns and 
blooming hills of that country must have been to 
them, dwelling among the rigors of Scandinavia, 
like the thought of a lost heaven. The time came 
at length when, weary of interminable winter and twi- 
light, they sent forth their vikings, fearless sea-rovers, 
in search of a more propitious home. These vikings 
found their way to Britain, conquered and possessed it, 
and became the forefathers of our Anglo-Saxon race. 

I. Sacred Literature, — Our knowledge of the Norse 
mythology is chiefly derived from the Eddas. For the 
survival of these sacred books we are indebted, strange 
to tell, not to Scandinavia, but to the people of another 
and far-distant land. On the introduction of Christianity 
into Northern Europe pains were taken to obliterate, 
as far as possible, all traces of the primitive faith : not 
only were temples and altars destroyed, but the people 
were required to disuse their sacred traditions. In the 
mean time, however, a hardy company of Norsemen had 
sailed away to Iceland, taking their religion with them, 
and amid the frozen fields and geysers and volcanoes of 
that desolate corner of the earth — a land not unfitted 

199 



200 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to be the final refuge of a religion of warring gods and 
giants — it was preserved for the coming ages. 

In Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn a blue-eyed 
Saxon refers to the Eddas as 

*• a wondrous book 
Of legends, in the old Norse tongue, 

Of the dead kings of Norroway — 
Legends that once were told or sung. 

In many a smoky fireside nook 
Of Iceland in the ancient day, 

By wandering Saga-man." 

The name Edda means " great-grandmother,** the 
reference being, probably, to the manner in which 
these tales were transmitted, unwTitten, from lip to lip 
by the dames of the olden time. The book is in two 
volumes. The Elder Edda consists of thirty-seven an- 
cient poems, mythical and legendary, collected and put 
forth in their present form by Saemund, a Christian 
priest of the eleventh century. It opens with the 
" Voluspa, or Wisdom of Vala," which purports to 
be a description of the universe before the inaugura- 
tion of the present order of things. It begins thus : 

" I claim the devout attention of all noble ones, 
The lofty and lowly of the Heimdall race ; 
I tell the works of the All-Father 
As related in the most ancient sagas. 

" I tell of the age of Ymer, 
When there was neither sea, nor shore, nor briny wave, 
No earth below nor heaven above, 
Nor yawning chasm, nor verdant plain." 

One of the poems of the Elder Edda, called " The 
Havamal," consists of a hundred and ten quatrains 



NOJ^SE MYTHOLOGY. 201 

of proverbial philosophy. The following will serve 
as illustrations : 

" Carefully consider the end 
Before you undertake anything; 
For all is uncertain when the foe 
Lies in wait in the house. 

" The guest on entering 
Needs water, a towel and entertainment ; 
A kind reception secures a return 
In word and deed. 

" A man cannot journey with a worse friend 
Than drunkenness; 
Not so beneficent as many believe 
Is beer to the children of men ; 
The more one drinks, the less he knows, 
And the less power he has over himself. 

** A man's own house, though small, is best; 
At home thou art master ; 
Two goats and a thatched roof 
Are better than beggary. 

" Is there one whom you distrust, 
And who yet can help you ? 
Be smooth in words and false in thought, 
And pay back his deceit with cunning. 

" I hung my clothes on two scarecrows. 
And when dressed they seemed 
Ready for battle ; 
Unclothed, they were derided by all. 

" It is well to be wise, not well 
To be too wise ; 
He has the happiest life 
W^ho knows well what he knows." ^ 

Another of the poems of the Elder Edda is '* The 
^ Clarke. 



202 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Song of Runes." The Norsemen believed that cer- 
tain combinations of the letters of the alphabet pos- 
sessed a magical virtue ; such combinations were called 
runes. It was customary for warriors to write runic 
rhymes on their sword-blades ; lovers carved them on 
their drinking-horns, sailors on the masts and rudders 
of their ships, leeches on the bark of sacred trees. 

The remainder of the Elder Edda is made up of 
wonderful tales of the adventures of heroes. In these 
the Norsemen found inspiration for their audacious 
deeds by land and sea. 

The Younger Edda is a prose compendium of myth- 
ology. It was arranged and put forth in the early part 
of the twelfth century by Snorro Thurleson of Iceland. 
The sources of his information were old songs and bal- 
lads and '* ancient family registers containing the pedi- 
grees of kings." It is from this Younger Edda that we 
chiefly derive our knowledge of the Norse religion. 

II. Theology. — (i) The Gods. — There is good reason 
to believe that the faith of the Norsemen was originally 
monotheistic. They bowed in worship before One 
whom they believed to be ** the Author of everything 
that exists, the Eternal, the Ancient, the living and 
awful Being, the Searcher who concealeth things, the 
Being that never changes ;" One who, as Dr. Burns 
says, '' possessed infinite power, boundless knowledge 
and inflexible justice — who was not to be worshiped 
in temples reared by human hands, but in consecrated 
groves and in the solitudes of the forest. It was for- 
bidden to represent him by any image. He was the 
great, invisible Spirit who pervaded the universe, too 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 203 

awful even to be named — who Avas to be served with 
sacrifices and prayers, and who delighted in seeing 
men lead pure and brave lives." 

We find among the wonderful tales of the Younger 
Edda the adventures of Gylfi, who visited Asgard, the 
home of the ^sir or Norse gods. He is said to have 
seen there a triple throne whereon sat Har '' the high 
one/' Jafnhar " the high one's fellow," and Thridi '' the 
third one." To these the doughty explorer was allowed 
to propound certain questions. 

"Who," he asked, *^is the first and eldest of the 
gods ?" 

And Har answered : " In our language he is called 
Al-Fadir ;" that is, the Father of all. 

" Where," asked Gylfi again, " is the dwelling-place 
of this Supreme One, and what is his power, and what 
hath he done to display his glory ?" 

Har answered, " He liveth from all ages, gov- 
erneth all realms and swayeth all things great and 
small." 

To which Jafnhar added, " He formed heaven and 
earth and the air, and all things belonging thereto." 

Thridi continued : " He also made man, and gave 
him a soul that shall never perish, though his body 
moulder away or be reduced to dust." 

Polytheism. — Thus it appears that the Norsemen were 
not without some sort of belief in an infinite One. 
But, however this One may have stood forth in the 
foreground of their original faith, it is certain that as 
time passed on he was practically lost sight of in a mul- 
tiplicity of gods. The writer from whom we have 



204 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

already quoted^ says: ^'Monotheism could not long 
satisfy a rude and fierce people, many of them living 
in countries remarkable for wild grandeur of scenery 
and subject to sudden and extreme climatic changes, 
involving great and striking elemental disturbances — 
most of them in a state of almost perpetual war. 
Nature by her changeful moods suggested the pres- 
ence of more gods than one ; their own experience, 
sometimes as victors, sometimes as vanquished, did 
the same. Rude minds never discover the unity of 
nature, and are quite unable to trace the endless variety 
of phenomena which meets them to the action of never- 
varying law." ^ 

Nature-worship. — So it came about that while the 
dim image of the true God was at the centre of this 
religion, its form to the casual glance and in popular 
practice was distinctly polytheistic. Its gods were the 
personified powers and phenomena of nature.^ Let us 

1 Dr. Burns, in Faiths of the World. 

2 I doubt if this can be laid down as a general proposition. The op- 
posite seems to be taught in Rom. 1:19, 20. There is always a pos- 
sibility of finding the One, though the natural tendency of the mind is 
away from him. 

3 James Freeman Clarke takes a different view. He says : " The 
gods are idealizations of human will set over against the powers of 
nature. The battle of the gods and giants represents the struggle of 
the soul against the inexorable laws of nature, freedom against fate, the 
spirit with the flesh, mind with matter, human hope with change, dis- 
appointment, loss ; * the emergency of the case with the despotism of the 
ruler.' " 

In the opinion of others the Norse gods are deified heroes. Odin is 
said to have been an adventurer from a town called Asgard, who, serv- 
ing in the army of Mithridates, in defeat fled to the forests of Scythia, 
where he collected a band of desperadoes and with them invaded 



NOJ^SE MYTHOLOGY. 205 

be mindful of the rugged birthplace of this religion, 
where sun and frost and tempest and subterranean fire 
were engaged in a perpetual struggle for mastery. Left 
to themselves, was it not inevitable that the inhabitants 
of that land should deify these titanic forces ? They 
dwelt in gloomy solitudes and along the edge of moun- 
tain-heights that overlooked an icy and tempestuous 
ocean. "The Eddas tell us of a marriage between a 
god of the sea and a daughter of the hills. Each 
uttered a complaint of the other's home : 

* Of mountains I weary/ said he : 

* Not long was I there — 
Nine nights only — 

But the howl of the wolf 

To my ears sounded ill 

By the song of the sea-bird.' 

The hill-goddess answers : 

* I could not sleep 

In my bed by the shore ; 
For the scream of the wild birds, 
The sea-mews, who came 
From the woods flying, 
Awoke me each morning.' 

The child of this union between the mountain and the 
sea was the religion of the Teutonic race ; beside the 
howl of the wolf and the scream of the sea-mew it 
struggled into life." ^ 

Here we have, therefore, as we should expect, the 
most romantic of the great religions, sending forth its 

Northern Europe : he placed his sons upon the thrones of the con- 
quered, and died in Sweden, B. c. 40. 
^ Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief. 



206 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

stalwart gods to traverse the earth in ten-league boots, 
to shake the hills with thunderous voice and wither 
the verdant forests with a glance ; abounding also in 
wonder-tales of the adventures of supernatural vikings, 
and in milder folk-lore which has furnished half the 
world with its nursery-rhymes. To the Norseman all 
mysterious things were supernatural, and the easy way 
to solve all questions in the supernatural realm was 
to conjure up a giant or a god. As has been well 
said by an eloquent writer : " The thunder was the 
rattle of Thor's chariot, the lightning the flash of his 
hammer swiftly hurled from his strong hand ; the wind 
was Sleipnir, the fleet steed of Odin ; the dew was foam 
from the bit of the horse of Night. When the hard 
winter-crust of earth began to thaw it was Rind yield- 
ing to the rough wooing of her persistent lover. When 
in spring the early flowers bloomed and the first braird 
was seen, it was Gerd cajoled by Skernia to listen to 
the addresses of Frey. As the yearly wave of verdure 
washed up the hillside, and the herdsman drove his 
cattle from the lowland meadows to the green uplands, 
Sif was beside him with her yellow hair. As the farmer 
looked at his fields covered with rich grain, he blessed 
the nuptials of Odin and Frigg. The fisherman row- 
ing his boat through the dancing waves saw in each 
of them a daughter of CEger, and, listening on shore 
to the loud tumult of the angry sea, he heard the wrath- 
ful clamor of these fickle maidens. The huntsman was 
haunted by a divine presence in the silent deeps of the 
forest ; the child as he looked upon the rainbow was 
told by his mother that that was the trembling bridge 



NOI^SE MYTHOLOGY, 207 

by which the gods crossed from heaven to earth. When 
the long days of summer were over and winter with its 
darkness and cold had come, the sad tale of the bright 
and good Baldur was doubtless told at many a fireside, 
and many a tear shed over the unhappy fate of that 
best beloved of the gods." ^ 

The Twelve ^sir. — There were twelve ^sir, or great 
gods, who dwelt in Asgard in palaces of gold. 

Odin, the All-Father, — The father of the twelve was 
Odin, the Al-Fadir, of whom it is written in the Younger 
Edda, " He governs all things, and, although the other 
deities are powerful, they all serve and obey him as 
children do their father." On account of this relation 
it is customary to speak of the Norse deities as '' the 
Odinic gods." Odin is, in fact, a deification of the over- 
arching canopy of heaven. He is represented as a 
venerable, one-eyed man, wearing a blue mantle and a 
broad-brimmed hat. 

" Then into the Volsung dwelling a mighty man there strode, 
One-eyed and seeming ancient, yet bright his visage glowed ; 
Cloud-blue was the hood upon him, and his kirtle gleaming gray 
As the latter-morning sun-dog when the storm is on the way." 

His arm is encircled with a ring from which other rings 
are ever uncoiling themselves and dropping earthward. 
On his shoulders are perched two ravens, and at his 
feet crouch two ravening wolves. In his right hand 
he carries an all-conquering spear. The mantle is sym- 
bolical of cloud and tempest. The broad hat — the tarn- 
kappe of the Niebelungen lay — signifies twihght or 

1 The Faiths of the World. 



208 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

concealment. The prolific ring means fruitfulness. 
The two ravens are Reflection and Memory, who, fly- 
ing to and fro, keep the god mindful of all things in 
heaven and earth. The one eye denotes the gift of 
prophecy, which belongs to Odin alone. It is related 
that he was compelled to throw his other eye into the 
water in order to secure the right of access to the well 
of wisdom ; which is only a poetic way of saying that 
the sun, the eye of heaven, sinks into the ocean at 
close of day. Odin, as his name Al-Fadir indicates, 
was regarded as the universal benefactor, the giver of 
every good and perfect gift: 

" He gives and grants 
Gold to the deserving; 
He gave Hermond 
A helm and corslet, 
And from him Sigmund 
A sword received. 
Victory to his sons he gives ; 
But to some riches, 
Eloquence to the great, 
And to men wit. 
Fair winds he gives to traders, 
But visions to skalds. 
Valor he gives 
To many a warrior." 

(i) Thor, — The mightiest of the twelve ^sir was 
Thor, the god of thunder, of whom it was said, '* He 
is the strongest of gods and men." He dwelt in a 
splendid mansion called Bilskirnir. 

" Five hundred halls 
And forty more, 



\ 



NOJ^SE MYTHOLOGY. 2O9 

Methinketh, hath 
Bowed Bilskirnir. 
* I am the god Thor ; 
I am the war-god, 
I am the Thunderer ! 
Here in my Northland, 
My fastness and fortress, 
Reign I for ever.' " 

This god was possessed of three precious things : 
the hammer Mjolnir, with which he wrought many- 
wonderful deeds ;^ the belt Mejingjardir, which, girded 

^ " The giant Thrymr once stole this hammer, and Loki was sent to 
find where he had hidden it. It had been buried deep in the ground, 
and Thrymr would restore it only on condition that the ^sir should 
give him the beautiful Freyja to wife. But at such a proposal the god- 
dess waxed wroth, and would in no wise consent to it. So the gods 
took counsel, and by the advice of Heimdall, one of the ^sir, they 
devised a plan by which the giant could be cheated. The thunder-god 
dressed himself in Freyja's weeds : he adorned himself with her neck- 
lace — the famed Brisinga necklace ; he let from his side keys rattle, and 
set a comely coif upon his head. Then he went to Jotunheim as though 
he were the bride ; Loki went with him as his serving-maid. The god 
could scarcely avoid raising some suspicions by his unwomanly be- 
havior; he alone devoured an ox, eight salmon and all the sweetmeats 
women love, and he drank three salds of mead. Thrymr exclaimed 
with wonder, 

' Who ever a bride saw sup so greedily ? 
Never a bride saw I sup so greedily. 
Nor a maid drink such measures of mead.' 

Sat the all- cunning servant-maid by. 
Ready her answer to the giant to give : 
* Naught has Freyja eaten for eight nights. 
So eager was she for Jotunheim.' 

'Neath the linen hood he looked, a kiss craving 
But sprang back in terror across the hall : 
14 



210 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

about his loins, redoubled his strength ; and a pair 
of iron gauntlets, without which it was impossible for 
him to grasp his hammer or tighten his belt. 

He was represented as a young man with a luxuriant 
red beard. When it thundered the Norsemen were 
accustomed to say, *^ Thor is blowing through his 
beard." He was a benignant god, whose special 
office was to bring the opposing forces of nature 
under subjection to men. There is no end of the 

* How fearfully flaming are Freyja's eyes ! 
Their glance burneth like a brand.' 

There sat the all-cunning servant-maid by. 
Ready with words the giant to answer : 

* For eight nights she did naught of sleep enjoy, 
So eager was she for Jotunheim.' 

In stepped the giant's fearful sister; 
For a bride's gift she dared to ask : 

* Give me from thy hand red rings 
If thou wilt gain my love, 

My love and favor.' 

Then spake Thrymr, the giants' prince: 

* The hammer bear in, the bride to consecrate ; 
Lay Mjolnir on the maiden's knee 

And unite us mutually in marriage-bonds.' 

Laughed Thor's heart in his breast 
When the fierce-hearted his hammer knew. 
Thrymr first slew he, the thursar's lord, 
And the race of jotuns all destroyed. 

He slew the ancient jotun sister, 
Who for a bride's gift had dared to ask ; 
Hard blows she got instead of skillings, 
And the hammer's weight in place of rings." 

— Outlines of Primitive Belief p. 355* 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 211 

wonderful tales of his feats of strength.^ '' His ham- 
mer broke the skull of the frost-giant, and freed earth 

1 The following, by way of illustration, is a history of the journey- 
ings of Thor to Jotunheim : 

" The god set out with the intention of discovering a certain giant, 
Utgardloki, who was especially powerful and especially the enemy of 
the gods. In truth, he was a sort of king of the under world, and 
Thor's journey to his hall is comparable to the descent of Heracles to 
the realm of Hades. After some travel the god arrived at the shore 
of a wide and deep sea. On the sea stood the bark of the ferryman, 
the Northern Charon, Harbard by name : 

* Steer hitherward thy bark ; 
I will show thee the strand. 
But who owns the skiff 
That by the shore thou rowest ?* 

" Thor was on this occasion traveling with Loki and two mortals, 
his servants, called Thialfi and Roska. They crossed the wade, deep 
sea and entered a boundless forest. No sooner had Thor and his com- 
rades thus got well into Jotunheim than they began to fall victims to its 
spells and enchantments ; and the glamour increased the farther they 
went, till at last their adventure ended only in a disastrous defeat. 
They came to what they took for a hall with wide entrance, having 
one small chamber at the side ; and while resting they were disturbed 
by a noise like an earthquake, which made all but Thor run into the 
chamber to hide themselves. In the morning an immense man, who 
had been sleeping on the ground hard by, and whose snoring it was 
that had so frightened all, arose, and presently lifted up that which they 
had fancied was a hall, and which now proved to be his glove. Then 
Thor and his companions and the giant, who w^as named Skrymir, con- 
tinued their journey together. But in the night Thor, thinking to kill 
Skrymir, hurled against the giant^s head his death-dealing hammer, 
Mjolnir, the force of which none, it was thought, could resist. Yet, 
behold ! Skrymir only asked if a leaf had fallen upon him as he slept. 
A second time the god raised his hammer and smote the giant with 
such force that he could see the weapon sticking in his forehead. 
Thereupon Skrymir awoke and said, * What is it ? Did an acorn fall 
upon my head ? How is it with you, Thor V Thor stept quickly back 
and answered that he had just awakened, and that it was midnight and 



212 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

from the bondage of winter, ground rocks and stones 
into powder and turned them into fruitful earth. He 

there were still many hours for sleep. Presently he struck a third time, 
with such force that the hammer sank into the giant's cheek up to the 
handle. Then Skrymir rose up and stroked his cheek, saying, * Are 
there birds in this tree ? It seems to me as if one of them had sent 
some moss down on my face.' 

" Anon Thor and his companions came to the city of the giant 
Utgardloki, in whose hall and among the company of giants feats 
of strength were performed to match the newcomers against the men 
of that place. First, Loki vaunted his skill in eating, and was matched 
against Logi (Fire). A trough was placed between them, and after 
each had seemed to eat voraciously they met just in the middle. But 
it was found that Loki had eaten the flesh only, whereas Logi had 
devoured the bones and the wood of the trough as well. Then, again, 
Thialfi stood to run a race with any one, and was set to try his speed 
against Hug (Thought), who in three courses vanquished him utterly. 
And now the turn came to Thor. First, he was challenged to drain a 
horn, * which,' said Utgardloki, * a strong man can finish in a draught, 
but the weakest can empty in three.' Thor made three pulls at the 
beaker, but at the end of the third had scarce laid bare more than the 
brim. The next trial was to raise a cat from the ground. * We have 
a very trifling game here,' said the giant, * in which we exercise none 
but children. It consists in merely lifting my cat from the ground ; nor 
should I have dared to mention it to thee, Thor, but that I have already 
seen thou art not the man we took thee for.' As he finished speaking 
a large gray cat leapt upon the floor. Thor advanced and laid his hand 
beneath the cat's belly and did his best to lift him from the ground ; 
but he bent his back, and, despite all Thor's exertions, had but one foot 
raised up ; and when Thor saw this he made no further trial. 

"*The trial,' said the giant, *has turned out as I expected. The cat 
is biggish and Thor is short and small beside our men.' Then spake 
Thor, ' Small as ye call me, let any one come near and wrestle with me, 
now I am in wrath.' Utgardloki looked round at the benches and an- 
swered, * I see no man in here who would not esteem it child's play to 
wrestle with thee. But I bethink me,' he continued : * there is the old 
woman now calling me, my nurse Elli (Age). With her let Thor 
wrestle if he will.' Thereupon came an old dame into the hall, and 
to her Utgardloki signified that she was to match herself against Thor. 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 21 3 

drove past in his chariot, and sent the pleasant show- 
ers which refreshed the parched field and made the 

We will not lengthen out the tale. The result of the contest was that 
the harder Thor strove the firmer she stood. And now the old crone 
began to make her set at Thor. He had one foot loosened, and a still 
harder struggle followed ; but it did not last long, for Thor was brought 
down on one knee. . . . 

"The next morning, at daybreak, Thor arose with his following; they 
dressed and prepared to go their ways. Then came Utgardloki, and 
had a meal set before them in which was no lack of good fare to eat 
and to drink. And when they had done their meal they took their road 
homeward. Utgardloki accompanied them to the outside of the town, 
and at parting he asked Thor whether he was satisfied with his journey, 
and if he had found any one more mighty than himself. Thor could 
not deny that the event had been little to his honor. *And well I 
know,' he said, * that you will hold me for a very insignificant fellow, 
at which I am ill pleased.' Then spoke Utgardloki : < I will tell thee 
the truth, now that I have got thee again outside our city, to which, 
so long as I live and bear rule there, thou shalt never enter again ; and 
I trow that thou never shouldst have entered it had I known thee to be 
possessed of such great strength. I deceived thee by my illusions ; for 
the first time I saw thee was in the wood ; me it was thou mettest there. 
Three blows thou struckest with thy hammer; the first, the lightest, 
would have been enough to bring death had it reached me. Thou 
sawest by my hall a rocky mountain, and in it three square valleys, 
of which one was the deepest. These were the marks of thy hammer. 
It was the mountain which I placed in the way of thy blow, but thou 
didst not discover it. And it was the same in the contests in which ye 
measured yourselves against my people. The first was that in which 
Loki had a share. He was right hungry and ate well. But he whom 
we call Logi was the fire itself, and he devoured the flesh and bowl 
alike. When Thialfi ran a race with another, that was my thought^ and 
it was not to be looked for that Thialfi should match him in speed. 
When thou drankest out of the horn, and it seemed so difficult to 
empty, a wonder was seen which I should not have deemed possible. 
The other end of the horn stretched out to the sea : that thou didst not 
perceive, but when thou comest to the shore thou mayest see what a 
drain thou hast made from it. And that shall men call the ebb.' He 
continued : * Not less wonderful and mighty a feat didst thou when 



214 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

grass green far up the hillside. In his strife with the 
hostile forces of nature he was man's firm friend ; and 
when with the poor serfs the strife was over, he took 
them to himself They could not ' fare to Odin/ but 
they fared to Thor. We are told that the newly-con- 
verted Germans had under the name of Christ the lord 
of thunder and giver of rain in view, and confounded 
the sign of the cross with the sign of the hammer. It 
was not an unnatural mistake.'' ^ 

(2) Baldur, the Summer God, — '* He is the best, and 
all mankind are loud in his praise. So fair and dazzling 
is he in form and features that rays of light seem to 
issue from him; and thou mayest have some idea of 
the beauty of his hair when I tell thee that the whitest 
of all plants is called * Baldur's brow.' " He dwells in 
a heavenly mansion called Breidablik, meaning that 
bright upper air which is the home of the sun. 

thou wast at lifting of t"he cat ; and, to speak sooth, we were all in a 
fright when we saw thou hadst raised one paw from the ground. For 
a cat it was not, as it seemed to thee. It was the Midgard worm, who 
lies encircling ail lands ; and when thou didst this he had scarce length 
enough left to keep head and tail together on the earth, for thou 
stretchedst him up so high that almost thou reachedst heaven. A 
great wonder it was at the wrestling-bout which thou hadst with Elli ; 
but no one was nor shall be whom, how long soever he live, Elli will 
not reach and Age bring to earth. Now that we are at parting thou hast 
the truth ; and for both of us it were better that thou come not here 
again. For again I shall defend my castle with my deceptions, and thy 
might will avail nothing against me.' When Thor heard these words 
he seized his hammer and raised it on high, but when he would have 
struck he could see Utgardloki nowhere. He turned toward the city, 
and was for destroying it, but he saw a wide and beautiful plain before 
him, and no city." — Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 349. 
1 The Faiths of the World, 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY, 21$ 

« 'Tis Breidablik called, 
Where Baldur the fair 
Hath built him a bower, 
In that land where I know 
The least loathliness lieth." 

In all the mythologies of the nations there is no more 
fascinating or affecting tale than that of Baldur's death.^ 

^ " The death of Baldur the good is thus related : Having been tor^ 
mented with bad dreams, indicating that his life was in danger, he told 
them to the assembled gods, who made all creatures and things, living 
or dead, take an oath to do him no harm. This oath was taken by fire 
and water, iron and all other metals, stones, earths, diseases, poisons, 
birds and creeping things. After this they amused themselves at their 
meeting in setting Baldur up as a mark, some hurling darts or shooting 
arrows at him, and some cutting at him with swords and axes ; and, as 
nothing hurt him, it was accounted a great honor done to Baldur. But 
wicked Loki (or Loke) was envious at this, and, assuming the form 
of a woman, he inquired of the goddess who administered the oath 
whether all things had taken it. She said everything except one little 
shrub called mistletoe, which she thought too young and feeble to do 
any harm. Therefore Loki got the mistletoe, and, bringing it to one 
of the gods, persuaded him to throw it at Baldur, who, pierced to the 
heart, fell dead. The grief was immense. A special messenger was 
despatched to Queen Hela, in hell, to inquire if on any terms BaldMr 
might be ransomed. For nine days and nights he rode through dark 
chasms till he crossed the river of Death, and, entering the kingdom 
of Hela, made known his request. Hela replied that it should now be 
discovered whether Baldur was so universally loved as was represented, 
for that she would permit him to return to Asgard if all creatures and 
all things, without exception, would weep for him. The gods then 
despatched messengers through the world to beg all things to weep 
for Baldur, which they immediately did. Then you might have seen 
not only crocodiles, but the most ferocious beasts, dissolved in tears. 
Fishes wept in the water, and birds in the air. Stones and trees were 
covered with pellucid dewdrops, and, for all we know, this general grief 
may have been the occasion of some of the deluges reported by geology. 
The messengers returned, thinking the work done, when they found an 
old hag sitting in a cavern, and begged her to weep Baldur out of hell. 



2l6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

He was slain by his brother, who unwittingly threw at 
him a sprig of mistletoe. All nature mourned to bring 
him back — "" all living things and trees and stones and 
metals " — but in vain. His body was placed upon the 
ship Ringhorni, whereon a funeral-pyre was lighted, 
and thus it drifted out upon the boundless sea. How 
could pen or pencil more splendidly set forth the fun- 
eral-fires of summer — a dead glory sinking in the red 
conflagration of a sunset sea? 

(3) Njord, the Sailors' God, — '' He rules over the winds 
and checks the fury of the sea and of fire, and is there- 
fore invoked by seafarers and fishermen." He has his 
dwelling close by the shore, where he may hear the 
voices of the wrecked and bewildered. The scream of 
the sea-bird makes music in his ears. 

(4) /7rj, the patron of agriculture. *' He presides 
over rain and sunshine and all the fruits of the earth, 
and should be invoked to obtain good harvests, and 
also for peace. He, moreover, dispenses wealth among 
men." ^ 

But she declared that she could gain nothing by so doing, and that 
Baldur might stay where he was, like other people as good as he, plant- 
ing herself, apparently, on the great but somewhat selfish principle of 
non-intervention. So Baldur remains in the halls of Hela. But this 
old woman did not go unpunished, She was shrewdly suspected to be 
Loki himself in disguise, and on inquiry so it turned out. Whereupon 
a hot pursuit of Loki took place, who, after changing himself into many 
forms, was caught and chained under sharp-pointed rocks below the 
earth." — Clarke's Ten Great Religions, p. 373. 

i"THE MARRIAGE OF FREY. 
" Once Frey mounted the seat of Odin, which was called Air-Throne, 
and, looking northward into far Giant-Land, he saw a light flash forth. 
Looking again, he saw that the light was made by the maiden Gerd, 



I 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 21/ 

(5) Tyr, the One-handed God, the most daring and 
intrepid of all. He is the dispenser of courage, and 
must be invoked by all who would deport themselves 
well in life's conflict. It is he who enables men to win 
their way to Walhalla, the paradise of the brave. 

(6) Bragi, the Master Skald or Singer.— He is the 
divine patron of eloquence, poetry and the painter's 
art. 

(7) Heimdall^ the White God^ the reputed son of 
seven virgins : 

*' Son am I of maidens nine ; 
Born am I of sisters nine.'^ 

He is the sentinel of heaven, ever on guard to prevent 
the giants from forcing their way into it. ** He requires 
less sleep than a bird, and sees, by night as by day, a 
hundred miles around him. So acute is his ear that 

who had just opened her father's door, and that it was her beauty which 
thus shone over the snow. Then Freyr was smitten with love-sadness, 
and determined to woo the fair one to be his wife; and so he sent liis 
messenger, Skirnir, to whom he gave his horse and magic sword. 
Skirnir went to Gerd, and he told her how great Freyr was among the 
-^sir. and how noble and happy a place was Asgard, the home of the 
gods; but, for all his pleading, Gerd would give no ear to his suit. At 
last the messenger drew his sword and threatened to take her life unless 
she would grant to Freyr his desire. So Gerd promised to visit the god 
nine nights thence in Barri's wood. 

" Here a very simple nature-myth is told us. The earth will not re- 
spond to the wooing of the sun unless he draw his sharp sword, the 
rays. In very northern lands we know that the sun himself does 
actually disappear in the cold north, the death-region. When he is 
there the earth consents to meet him again with love nine nights hence 
— that is to say, after the nine winter months are over. They meet in 
Barri's wood, which is (he wood in its first greenness." — Outlines of 
Primitive Belief p. 372. 



2l8 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

no sound escapes him ; for he can even hear the grass 
growing on the earth and the wool on a sheep's back/' 

(8) Hodiir, the Blind, the God of Darkness. — It was he 
who pierced to the heart his brother, the summer god, 
with the sprig of mistletoe. His name is held in abhor- 
rence ; therefore gods and men alike never mention it. 

(9) VidaVy the Silent. — He wore shoes of thick wool. 
His counsel was sought by lovers of artifice in peace 
or war. 

(10) Valiy the Aixher, invoked by warriors when facing 
the foe. 

(11) UlluTy God of the Skees or Snow-skates. — He was 
famed for athletic beauty, as well as for the incompar- 
able speed with which he traversed the fields of ice. 

(12) Forsetiy the God of Even-handed Justice , con- 
sulted especially by disputants at law. 

These were the twelve ^sir, or Odinic gods. 

Loki. — There was yet another, a luckless thirteenth, 
who must by no means be overlooked : this was Loki, 
the calumniator of the gods. He was at the bottom 
of all fraud and mischief; handsome and graceful, cun- 
ning and treacherous, woe to god or giant who fell 
under his evil eye ! He was the Norseman's devil. 
He had three children — the wolf Fenrir, the serpent 
Jormungand, and Hel, or Death. 

Minor Pozvers. — In addition to the deities already 
mentioned, there were others, minor gods and god- 
desses, without number. Moreover, '' the earth and 
air were filled with unseen but most active agents — 
with dwarfs, busy in the bowels of the mountains 
among metals and stones ; with elves, watching and 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 2I9 

pervading the life of plants and trees and beasts and 
men. War-maidens — the Valkyries ^ — went with Odin 
to battle, and chose the combatants who were to fall, 
and waited on the slain heroes in bright Walhalla. 
Fulgiur and Hamingiur, as guardian angels, accom- 
panied every man from the cradle to the grave. 
The fate of all was in the hands of the Norns,^ who, 
spinning the threads of destiny, determined everything 
that should be/' ^ 

(2) The Creation, — The Eddas relate that in the be- 
ginning there was chaos, 

" When all was not ; 
Nor sound, nor sea, 
Nor cooling wave ; 
Nor earth there was 
Nor sky above; 
Naught save a void 
And yawning gulf." 

The name given to this void and yawning gulf was 

^ " These cloudy beings, the Valkyries, remote as they may seem from the 
things of nature and from the experience of life, filled a considerable space 
in Teutonic thought. They represented the ideal of womanhood to the 
rude chivalry of the North. Their functions were twofold: they pre- 
sided over battles and foretold future events. Tacitus and Caesar have 
described how the German wives used to urge their husbands forward 
in the day of the fight, and how, on more than one occasion, an army 
which had actually turned to fly had been driven back against the spears 
of their opponents by the exhortations or the jibes of their womankind. 
The same writers have told us of the prophetic powers ascribed to 
women by the Teutons. These Valkyri had some influence upon the 
Middle-Age conceptions of angels, and a greater influence upon the 
conception of witches." — Outlines of Primitive Belief y p. 345. 

' The names of the Norns were Urd, Verdandi and SkuUl, meaning 
past, present and future. 

^ The Faiths of the World. 



220 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Ginnungagap, or " the gaping gap." ^ On the north 
side of it was a cold, dark region called Niflheim ; on 
the south, a warm, bright region called Mispelheim. 
From the former there flowed into the gulf a stream 
of frigid venom, which, being melted by benignant fires 
from Mispelheim, took the form of a giant, the terri- 
ble Ymir. This giant was nourished by a cow. The 
cow licked the hoar-frost from the rocks, and from this 
hoar-frost sprang a full-grown man, whose son, Boe, 
became the father of the illustrious trio Odin, Vili and 
Vi ; that is, Spirit, Will and Holiness. These three 
slew the giant Ymir, and of his flesh they made the 
earth ; of his blood, the seas, lakes and rivers ; of his 
bones, the mountain-ranges; of his teeth, jaws and 
broken bones, the stones and pebbles. They fastened 
the earth together, and bound the ocean round it like 
a ring. Of the giant's skull they made the sky, and 
raised it over the earth. At its four corners were sta- 
tioned the watchful dwarfs Austre, Vestre, Nordre and 
Sudre ; that is. East, West, North and South. In the 
mean time, sparks flying from Mispelheim were caught 
and fixed in heaven to illuminate the heavens and earth. 
The earth was surrounded by a wall made from the 
giant's shaggy eyebrows, that so its inhabitants might 
be prevented from falling off. His brains also, scat- 
tered through the air, became the flying clouds. The 
giant at length being quite used up, the work of 
creation was perforce regarded as finished, and all very 
good. 

^ The exact equivalent of chaos^ from the Greek x^^-> ^^ g^P^- 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 221 

Observe, there is no suggestion here of the produc- 
tion of anything ex nihilo. The Norsemen were strict 
evolutionists. They must have something to begin 
with, even though it w^ere necessary to get back of 
everything in order to find it. 

As the three sons of Boe were passing along the 
sea-strand they found two wonderful trees, an ash and 
an elm, out of which they produced the first human 
pair, calling them Ask and Embla. Odin breathed 
into them the breath of life, Vili gave them reason, 
and Vi gave them a fair complexion and the senses ; 
as it is written: 

" Spirit they owned not, 
Sense they had not, 
Blood nor vigor. 
Spirit gave Odin, 
Thought gave Vili, 
Blood gave Vi 
And color fair.'' 

It was thus that the Norsemen accounted for the origin 
of things. 

(3) The Future. — They believed in a future life. 
Death was called heimgang, or home-going — " a 
thought always beautiful and tender, but still more 
so as coming from these wild rovers of the homeless 
sea." They placed coins under the tongues of their 
dead to pay their fare to the other world. But while 
they believed in a future life, they rejected immortahty. 
The present order, however far extended, will ultimately 
come to rack and ruin. Gods and men together will 
perish when the cycle ends. 



222 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

" Between divine and human life what is the odds? 
A human life is but a watch-tick to the gods. 
Their hour has many ticks, their day has many an hour, 
And many days fill up their years' enormous dower; 
But when threescore and ten of those large years a god 
Has told, he is touched by death's appropriating rod/' 

Ragnarok. — The crisis of the universal struggle de- 
picted in the Norse religion is reached at Ragnarok, or 
gods' doom. By this is meant the awful and universal 
catastrophe which is to terminate the existing order 
and make room for a new heaven and a new earth. It 
is to be preceded by three successive winters without a 
summer, during which war and tumult are to prevail 
universally : 

" Brothers will fight together 
And become each- other's bane; 
Sisters' children 
Shall foully wrong each other. 
Hard is the world ; 
Sensual sins grow huge. 
There are axe-ages, sword-ages ; 
Shields are cleft in twain. 
There are wind-ages, wolf-ages. 
E'er the world falls dead." 

In the mean time, Odin has been recruiting his army 
of heroes from all earth's battlefields in anticipation of 
the final struggle with the giants of the lower world. 
The last day is at length ushered in by the shrill crow- 
ing of three cocks — the gold-bright, the bright-red and 
the sooty-red. From above the gateway of the infernal 
regions Egdir, the storm-eagle, screams his defiant re- 
sponse. 

" Loud howls Garm from the Gnupa cave ; 
The fetter breaks and the wolf runs free." 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 223 

From the east a ship comes saihng, bringing the frost- 
giants, and another, made of dead men's nails, comes 
laden with a troop of ghosts. In front are the wolves 
that sat at Odin's feet, the sea-monster, and Garm the 
hell-hound. One of the wolves devours the sun, the 
other, the moon. The stars fall and the earth is con- 
vulsed. The Midgard serpent seeks the land, and the 
sea rushes over all. In the midst of this universal 
wrack a blast from the trumpet of Heimdall awakes 
the gods, who prepare for the fray. Now the heavens 
are rent, and from the five hundred and forty gates of 
Walhalla they issue forth, leading the four hundred and 
thirty-two thousand heroes of Odin. In the midst of 
Vigrid's plain they meet the Fenris wolf, the serpent, 
the giants, Loki himself, and all the hosts of Hel. Odin 
is swallowed by the Fenris wolf; the Fenris wolf is 
pierced by the sword of Vidar. Thor slays the Mid- 
gard serpent, but, suffocated by its poisonous breath, 
recoils nine paces and falls dead. Frey is overcome 
by Surt. Tyr is killed by the dog Gurt. Heimdall 
measures weapons with the fierce Loki, and both fall. 
Then Surt flings a handful of fire on the earth, and 
there is universal conflagration. 

" The sun grows dark ; 
The earth sinks into the sea ; 
The bright stars 
From heaven vanish; 
Fire rages. 
Heat blazes, 
And high flames play 
'Gainst heaven itself." ^ 
^ For most of the translations in this article the author is indebted to 
Anderson's Norse Mythology, 



224 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD, 

Restoration. — But this general catastrophe is to be 
followed by a renewal or ** regeneration." The earth 
is to rise again, green and fair, from the sea. The fields 
are to produce spontaneous harvests. The two surviv- 
ing gods — Vidar the silent and Vadi the archer — are to 
dwell upon the former site of Asgard, and thither shall 
come the sons of Thor and other mighty ones. Two 
mortals, Lif and Lifthraser, who also have escaped the 
conflagration, are to repeople the earth. The sun's 
daughter is to take her mother's place in mid-heaven, 
giving light to all. " And if you ask any more ques- 
tions," said Har to Ganglere, " I have never heard any 
one tell further of the world's fate. Make now the 
best of what I have told you." 

Heaven. — The heaven of the Norsemen was a place 
of two apartments. The first, Walhalla, was for heroes 
only. It was a vast hall " shining with pure gold, its 
ceiling formed of spears, its walls of shields, its benches 
glittering with coats of mail." The distinguished war- 
riors who were admitted here regaled themselves on 
the flesh of the wild boar Sahrimner — 

« 'Tis the best of flesh ; 
There are few who know 
"What the Einherjes eat" — 

and luscious beer from the goat Heidrun. Every morn- 
ing, as soon as dressed, they went forth into the court 
and fought and slew one another; then came in to 
breakfast. 

" All the Einherjes 
In Odin's court 
Hew daily each other. 
They choose the slain, 



1 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 225 

And ride from the battlefield ; 
Then sit they in peace together." 

The other apartment of heaven is called Gimli. It 
is for all the virtuous and brave. *^ Plenty is there of 
good drink for those who deem this a joy." 

Hell. — The Norsemen's hell also consists of two 
apartments. The first, Niflheim, is a kind of purga- 
tory, to be used only until Ragnarok is passed. The 
other, Nastrand, is to be, through all successive cycles, 
a place of unmitigated torment. It is represented as a 
great hall opening toward the stormy north, built of 
serpents wattled together, their heads inward, vomiting 
venom that flows in streams along the floor, wherein 
all perjurers and murderers are doomed to wade. The 
dwelling of the goddess Hel is thus described: " Her 
palace is anguish, her table is famine, her knife is star- 
vation, her w^aiters are slowness and delay, her door is 
a precipice, her bed is care, and its curtains are splen- 
did misery." 

III. Forms of Worship. — The rites and ceremonies of 
the Norsemen were of the simplest. They had three 
annual festivals. The first, called Yul (whence our 
Yule-tide), occurred at the winter solstice, on the 
longest night of the year. The second was in the 
spring-time, in honor of the goddess Ostara, whence 
our Easter. The third was the great festival of Odin, 
at which sacrifices and prayers were offered, though at 
no time would the Norsemen confess an utter depend- 
ence on their gods. They seem to have believed, as 
James Freeman Clarke says, " in nothing but their 
own might and main." 

15 



226 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

Their sacred rites were most frequently celebrated 
in the forests, the worshipers full armed and uplifting 
jovial cups. From them we have our custom of drink- 
ing toasts. They drank to Odin, then to the lesser 
gods, and then to dead heroes, at which period of the 
sacred ceremonies the martial worshiper was usually 
hors du combat — /. e, under the table. This was reck- 
oned the height of religious fervor. 

The trees of the forest were regarded with special 
reverence : the oak, with the mistletoe springing out 
of its bosom, the ash and the elm were looked upon 
as sentient things. A tree was thought to be growing 
somewhere with branches overshadowing the earth and 
top reaching into heaven. 

" I know an ash that stands, Yggdrasil named, 
Towering aloft with limpid water laved : 
Thence come the dews that fall into the dales ; 
Over Fate's fountain stands it ever green." 

From these ancient beliefs and customs we have de- 
rived our May pole^ and Christmas tree.^ 

^ The author oi \ki^ Anatomie of Abuses (sixteenth century) thus refers 
to the customs of May Day : " They goe some to the woods and groves, 
some to the hills and mountaines, where they spend the night in pleasaunt 
pastime, and in the morning they return, bringing with them birche 
boughes and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But 
their chiefest jewel they bring thence is the Maypoale, which they bring 
home with great veneration, as thus : they have twentie or fourtie yoake 
of oxen, and everie oxe has a sweet nosegaie of flowers tied to the top 
of his homes, and these oxen drawe the Maypoale, the stinking idol 
rather." 

2 ** The village tree of the German races was originally a tribal tree, 
with whose existence the life of the village was involved ; and when 
we read of Christian saints and confessors that they made a point of 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY. 22/ 

IV. Morals. — Central Thought : Courage. — The cen- 
tral thought of the Norse religion was courage. The 
business of these people was war. They saw perpetual 
strife in nature — sea against land, winter against sum- 
mer, light against darkness; personifying the forces 
of nature, they made a pantheon of warlike gods and 
giants, typifying the endless antagonisms of good and 
evil; and — as the proverb holds good, "Like gods, 
like people " — they themselves conceived that to be 
the manliest life which in utter fearlessness was most 
nearly like that of their gods. 

^'What shall I Do to be Saved T' — Their answer to 
the question, "What shall I do to be saved?" was, 
Fight a good fight; against what, it scarcely matters; 
whether the cause be good or bad, quit yourself like a 
man, and the gates of Walhalla will open to receive 
you. 

Not that these people had no true moral conceptions. 
They condemned, in particular, blasphemy, perfidy and 
unchastity ; not so much, however, because these were 
morally wrong as because they unmanned men. They 
held that the sin of all sins was cowardice. No braver 
souls, let it be said, ever lived than these Norsemen. 
They encountered the tempests of their northern seas 
in rude, fragile boats, and, wielding the simplest weap- 
ons, were unconquerable in battle. They were so 
jealous of their personal independence, so determined 
on having elbow-room, that they dwelt in homes apart, 

cutting down these half-idols, we cannot wonder at the rage they called 
forth, nor that they often paid the penalty of their courage." — Outlines 
of Primitive Belief, p. 65. 



228 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

contemning the restraints of village-life. They loved 
freedom with all their heart and soul and strength, and 
they left as a heritage to the nations a broad spirit of 
individual sovereignty which has expressed itself, in 
these last days, in the manifesto, " All men are created 
free and equal, and with certain inalienable rights." ^ 

The old Norse king, Ragnor Lodbrok, when about 
to die, refusing to complain, said, " We are cut to pieces 
with swords, but it fills me with joy to think of the 
feast prepared for me in Odin's palace. Quickly, 
quickly, seated in the splendid habitation of the gods, 
I shall be drinking beer out of a curved horn. A brave 
man fears not to die." 

The conversion of the Teutons to Christianity was a 
matter of brief time and little difficulty. Their inde- 
pendent spirit had fully prepared them for acquiescence 
in a gospel whose prime virtue is manliness and whose 
highest aspiration is the glorious liberty of the chil- 
dren of God ; and, moreover, they perceived that the 
new religion offered as a gratuity what the old had not 
even suggested to them — namely, a complete deliver- 
ance from the bondage and shame of sin. 



« King Olaf raised the hilt 
Of iron, cross- shaped and gilt, 

And said, * Do not refuse; 
Count well the cost and loss — 
Thor's hammer or Christ's cross : 

Choose !' 

^ Montesquieu says : ** The Goth Jornandes calls the North of Europe 
* the forge of mankind.' I would rather call it the forge of those in- 
struments which broke the fetters manufactured in the South." 



NORSE MYTHOLOGY, 229 

« And Halfred the scald said, * This 
Is the name of the Lord I kiss, 

Who on it was crucified.' 
And a shout went round the board : 
* In the name of Christ the Lord 
Who died !' 

" Then over the waste of snows 
The noonday sun uprose. 

Through the driving mists revealed, 
Like the lifting of the Host, 
By incense clouds almost 
Concealed. 

" On the shining wall a vast 
And shadowy cross was cast 

From the hilt of the lifted sword; 
And in foaming cups of ale 
The Berserks drank, * Was hael ! 

To the Lord !'" 1 

It was in the eighth century that St. Boniface hewed 
down the sacred oak of Thor. While his axe rang 
against the gnarled trunk the worshipers of the thun- 
der-god stood by, expecting momentarily to see him 
struck with Heaven's wrath. When, at length, he 
knelt unharmed by the side of the fallen oak, they 
recognized him as a hero after their own heart, and 
were ready to kneel beside him in reverence to Thor's 
conqueror, the Christ. The proclamation of the gos- 
pel, as Frederick Maurice says, " did not find the Goths 
watching the embers of an expiring civilization, but, 
full of boyish vigor and life and rudeness, eager to 
break and subdue the earth ; possessed by the wildest 
dreams of powers in earth and sea which wrestled for 
^ Longfellow, Kmg Olaf's Christtnas. 



230 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

victory ; doing homage to a champion of strong hand 
and seeing eye, the leader of their host and their 
prophet. With much joy, though amidst much con- 
fusion, these barbarians welcomed the tidings of a Re- 
deemer in whom men could recognize at once their 
Lord and their brother." 

To these worshipers of Odin and his twelve mighties 
we are largely indebted for the free, broad, hearty Prot- 
estantism which now so largely prevails among the 
more advanced peoples of the earth. It was a Saxon 
monk who nailed to the royal chapel door in 1517 the 
ninety theses of the Reformation, and his countrymen 
are to-day in the van of the great struggle for spiritual 
freedom. The battle goes bravely on — a grander than 
that of ^sir against giants — and '' the White Christ " 
must win. He, being lifted up, will draw all men unto 
him. 

*' Cross against corslet, 
Love against hatred, 
Peace-ciy for war-cry ! 

" Stronger than steel 
Is the sword of the Spirit; 
Swifter than arrows 
The light of the truth is ; 
Greater than anger 
Is love, and subdueth. 

**The dawn is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless ; 
Love is eternal ! 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us ; 
Christ is eternal!" 



VIII. 
CONFUCIANISM. 



A. Its Ce7itral Thought : The Kingdom. 

B. Its Characteristic Featu7'es : 

I. Filial Piety. 

" What shall I Do to be Saved ?" 

II. Veneration for Learning. 

Sacred Books : 
(I.) The Five King : 

1. Shu-King; Ancient Chronicles. 

2. Shi-King ; Ancient Poems. 

3. Li-King ; Book of Etiquette, 

4. Yih-King ; Book of Divination. 

$. Chun-tsiu ; or, Spring and Autumn. 
(II.) The Four Shoo : 

1. Lun-Yu ; or Table-talk of Confucius. 

2. Ta-Hio ; or Great Learning. 

3. Chung-Yung ; or Doctrine of the Mean. 

4. The Works of Mencius. 

III. Conservatism. 
C. Its Fruits : 

1. No intellectual vigor. 

2. No ambition. 

3. No good cheer. 

4. No common morality. 



VIII. CONFUCIANISM. 

Its Founder, — In the sixth century b. c. there was an 
old officer in the province of Lu named Shuh-Iiang- 
heih, who was the last living scion of the proudest 
lineage in China. At seventy years of age he sought 
an alliance with a family wherein there were three fair 
daughters. The two oldest gave an adverse answer to 
his suit; the youngest married him from a sense of 
duty, in the hope of perpetuating his honorable line. 
In the year 551 she became the mother of a son who 
was named K'ung-foo-Tse, the '' Master Kung," or, as 
the world knows him, Confucius. 

The chronicles say that not long before this a curious 
stone had been found in his father's garden bearing this 
inscription : '* A child is about to be born pure as the 
crystal wave ; he shall be a king without a kingdom!' ^ 

This occurred at about the time when the Jews were 
beginning to return from Babylon, when Pythagoras 
was teaching his disciples under the palm trees, and 
when the Tarquins were governing Rome. 

The boy K'ung-foo-Tse was early left fatherless. 
His youth was passed in poverty. Tradition says that 
when six years old he developed a taste for playing at 

^ This prediction has been fulfilled. The subjects of the uncrowned 
king have been hundreds of millions. No other teacher has ever spoken 
to so many souls. 

233 



234 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

sacrifices, and at fifteen he conceived an insatiable thirst 
for learning. On coming of age he married and was 
appointed superintendent of parks in his native place. 

At this time the government of China was in dire 
confusion. '' It had fallen into decay," writes his dis- 
ciple Mencius, " and sound principles had disappeared." 
The people cherished dim traditions of an age of in- 
nocence in the far-away past, ** when the whole crea- 
tion enjoyed a state of happiness, when everything was 
beautiful and everything good, when all beings were 
perfect of their kind." How sad the change ! Now 
** perverse disputings and oppressive deeds were waxen 
rife. Ministers murdered their rulers, and sons their 
fathers." Mencius adds significantly, " Confucius was 
frightened at what he saw." 

The popular ballad of that day, which still survives 
in the Book Shi-King, was this : 

" Cold blows the north wind, 

Thickly falls the snow ; 
Oh come, all ye that love me, 

Let us join hands and go. 
Can we any longer stay, 
Victims of this dire dismay?'* 

Thus did the people lament the disorders of the 
times. Confucius took advantage of his official posi- 
tion to inquire into the origin of these disorders ; and 
he found it, as he supposed, in the abandonment of the 
practical precepts of the fathers. It was an age of 
speculation; the people went stumbling along the 
paths of duty because their eyes were dreamily fixed 
on the things of the invisible world. Dr. Matheson 



I 



CONFUCIANISM, 235 

says : " Men were forgetting the light of the common 
day in their search for that transcendental light which 
never shone on sea or land. On such a world the 
message of Confucius fell like a thunderbolt fraught 
with sanitary influences. To an age immersed in trans- 
cendentalism there was health in the message, ' Do the 
will, and ye shall know of the doctrine/ There was 
health in the recall to the practical duties of life of 
men who had forgotten that life had any duties or that 
practice had any sphere." ^ 

^ " He professed to answer the question by what means a man was 
qualified to become a citizen of that heavenly kingdom which had been 
established in the Chinese empire. When he came upon the scene he 
found his countrymen already engaged in endeavoring to solve that 
problem. He found them inquiring into the nature of that mysterious 
life which they believed to be diffused throughout the empire. Some 
held it to be the manifestation of a personal God, some looked upon it 
as the emanation of an impersonal force of nature, and some saw in it 
a stream of beneficent life poured down by the immortal spirits of their 
ancestors. Accordingly, there was everywhere observed a form of re- 
ligious worship. There were public sacrifices ; there were private pray- 
ers addressed either to the Supreme Being or to the ancestral dead ; 
there were rituals and rules for their performance. Confucius stood 
forth in the midst of this old world and cried, * I show you a more 
excellent way !' He did not, indeed, tell his countrymen that theirs 
was a bad way; he was far too wise and politic for that. He did not 
tell them that their worship of a supramundane God was a delusion, 
their belief in immortality a dream, and their observance of a sacrifice 
a waste of time. What he did say was this : * There are things above 
the power of human comprehension, beyond the grasp of human intel- 
ligence; follow those things which are within the reach of that intel- 
ligence. You cannot figure to yourself the nature of God; you cannot 
certainly know that there is any point of contact between His nature 
and yours ; and in the absence of such knowledge the efficacy of your 
prayers and of your sacrifices must ever be an open question. But 
there is a region lying at the door which he who will may enter, and 



236 THE RELIGIONS OE THE WORLD. 

In pursuance of his purpose to revive the practical 
wisdom of the past he devoted himself to the study 
of neglected books and parchments, and, as opportunity- 
was afforded, he applied in the discharge of his own 
official functions the moral and political maxims of the 
sages. " A transforming power," says Mencius, ** went 
abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness hid their heads. 
Loyalty and good faith became the characteristics of 
the men, and chastity and teachableness of the women.'' 
The one object of Confucius's life now was to reform 
society and the government, and to do this by a resto- 
ration of old customs. He opened a school. It was 
not long before three thousand students were sitting at 
his feet, and among them many of the most learned 
and illustrious youths of the land. 

His pupils reverenced him as the wisest and best of 
men ; insomuch that they have left on record his most 
commonplace doings — his table-talk, how he ate his 
food, lay on his bed and sat in his carriage ; how he 
changed countenance when it thundered, how he " rose 
up before the old man and the mourner." These chron- 
icles, together with a voluminous setting forth of the 

which is itself the entrance into the heavenly kingdom — a region within 
the reach of the most humble intellectual powers and capable of being 
trodden by the simplest minds. That region is the world of duty : this 
is the door by which a man must enter the kingdom of heaven. What 
you have called in the past the observance of religion is in reality but 
an exercise of imagination : it may represent a truth or it may not — we 
cannot tell. But morality, the doing of that which is right, the per- 
formance of the plain and practical duties of the day and hour, — this is 
the road which is open to every man, and which will lead every man 
that follows it to the highest goal.' " — GtORGE Matheson, D. D., in 
Faiths of the World, p. 66. 



CONFUCIANISM. 237 

precepts of ancient wise men, form the sacred books 
of China. 

The purpose of Confucius, be it remembered, was 
not to originate a rehgious system, but to quicken the 
neglected wisdom of the past and reinstate the spirit 
of the forefathers as the presiding genius of the em- 
pire. The objective point of all his teachings was 
sound government. On one of his journeys he saw 
a woman weeping before a tomb, and sent his disciple 
Tze-loo to inquire the cause of her sorrow. She in- 
formed him that here her father-in-law, her husband and 
her son had successively been killed by a tiger. " Why, 
then," said Tze-loo, " do you not remove from this 
place ?" — " Because," she answered, '' there is no op- 
pressive government here." On hearing this Confucius 
observed to his disciples, *^ Remember, oppressive gov- 
ernment is fiercer than a tiger." 

His method of instruction was dogmatic. Unlike 
Socrates, he would have no questioning. " When I 
have presented," he said, '' one corner of my lesson, 
and the pupil cannot of himself make out the other 
three, I do not repeat it." 

As to the personal appearance of the philosopher, 
we may learn something from an incident which oc- 
curred in connection with his visit to the capital of 
Ching. " There is a man," said one of the townspeople, 
** standing at the east gate with a forehead like Yaou, a 
neck like Kaou Yaou, his shoulders on a level with 
those of Tsze-chan, but wanting below the waist three 
inches of the height of Yu, and altogether having the 
appearance of a stray dog." This description was 



238 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

recognized by Tze-Kung, one of Confucius^s disciples, 
who, hastening to his master, repeated what he had 
heard. '* Capital !" exclaimed Confucius. " Personal 
appearance is a matter of slight consequence, but it is 
something, indeed, to resemble a stray dog." 

He traveled to and fro among the provinces, his dis- 
ciples at his back sharing his toil and hardships, and 
visited many courts in the hope of persuading their 
rulers and dignitaries to respect the maxims of just 
government. The land was full of recluses, who, tired 
of the monotonous sight of oppression and wrong, had 
betaken themselves to the wildernesses in stoical de- 
spair; but Confucius held himself aloof from them. 
Born to sympathize with men and be one among them, 
he preferred to " struggle on against the tide, hoping 
against hope." Once in his journeying, having come 
to an impassable river, he sent his disciple Tze-loo to 
inquire for the ford. The man whom Tze-loo happened 
to meet was a hermit. *' Go tell thy master," said he, 
" that the disorders of our kingdom are a flood with- 
out a ford. Bid him cease his endeavor to repress the 
wrongs that are surging and spreading on every hand, 
and retire from the world." Tze-loo went back and re- 
ported what had been said, whereupon Confucius made 
this noble and philosophic reply : *' We must not with- 
draw from the world to associate with birds and beasts 
that have no affinity with us. With whom shall I 
mingle but with suffering men? It is my vocation to 
see that abuses shall cease by the prevalence of right 
principles throughout the state." We cannot but re- 
spect the true spirit of a reformer wherever it may be 



CONFUCIANISM. 239 

found — one who knows the possibility of failure and 
defeat, yet keeps a brave heart, and, having done all, 
stands in his appointed place. 

Thus engaged in rekindling the old lights of wis- 
dom and virtue, K'ung-foo-Tse, " unconsciously," as he 
tells us, " grew old/' The pains and weaknesses of 
age came rapidly upon him ; he leaned heavily upon 
his staff. One morning in the fourth month of the 
year 478 he was found moving about his door, his 
hands behind him, crooning over and over, 

" The great mountain must crumble, 
The strong beam must break, 
The wise man must wither like a plant." ^ 

His disciples led him gently in and spake comforting 
words ; but the pitcher was broken at the fountain. 
" No," he answered, " comfort is vain. No king has 

^ " These words came as a presage of evil to the faithful Tszekung. 
* If the great mountain crumble,' said he, * to w^hat shall I look up ? If 
the strong beam break and the wise man wither away, on whom shall I 
lean ? The master, I fear, is going to be ill.' So saying, he hastened 
after Confucius into the house. • What makes you so late ?' said Con- 
fucius when the disciple presented himself before him ; and then he 
added, * According to the statutes of Hea, the corpse was dressed and 
coffined at the top of the eastern steps, treating the dead as if he were 
still the host. Under the Yin the ceremony was performed between 
the two pillars, as if the dead were both host and guest. The rule 
of Chow is to perform it at the top of the western steps, treating the 
dead as if he were a guest. I am a man of Yin, and last night I 
dreamt that I was sitting, with offerings before me, between the two 
pillars. No intelligent monarch arises; there is not one in the empire 
who will make me his master. My time is come to die.' It is emi- 
nently characteristic of Confucius that in his last recorded speech and 
dream his thoughts should so have dwelt on the ceremonies of bygone 
ages." — Professor R. K. Douglas, in Confiidanisf?i, pp. 62, 63. 



240 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

received me as his counselor/ nor is any willing to 
adopt the wisdom of the sages ; my time has come 
to die." 

Outside the city of K'uih-fow, approached by an 
avenue of cypress trees, stands an image on a lofty 
mound kept ever green, and a memorial tablet bearing 

^ " According to his theory, his official administration should have 
effected the reform not only of his sovereign and the people, but of those 
of the neighboring states. But what was the practical result ? The 
contentment which reigned among the people of Loo, instead of in- 
stigating the duke of Ts'e to institute a similar system, only served to 
rouse his jealousy. * With Confucius at the head of its government,' 
said he, * Loo will become supreme among the states, and Ts'e, which 
is nearest to it, will be swallowed up. Let us propitiate it by a sur- 
render of territoiy.' But a more provident statesman suggested that 
they should try to bring about the disgrace of the sage. 

" With this object he sent eighty beautiful girls, well skilled in the 
arts of music and dancing, and a hundred and twenty of the finest 
horses which could be procured, as a present to the duke Ting. The 
result fully realized the anticipation of the minister. The girls were 
taken into the duke-s harem, the horses were removed to the ducal 
stables, and Confucius was left to meditate on the folly of men who 
preferred listening to the songs of the maidens of Ts'e to the wisdom 
of Yaou and Shun. Day after day passed, and the duke showed no 
signs of returning to his proper mind. The affairs of state were ne- 
glected, and for three days the duke refused to receive his ministers in 
audience. 

*** Master,' said Tze-loo, * it is time you went.' But Confucius, who 
had more at stake than his disciple, was disinclined to give up the ex- 
periment on which his heart was set. Besides, the time was approach- 
ing when the great sacrifice to Heaven at the solstice, about which he 
had so many conversations with the duke, should be offered up, and he 
hoped that the recollection of his weighty words would recall the duke 
to a sense of his duties. But his gay rivals in the affections of the duke 
still held their sway, and the recurrence of the great festival failed to 
awaken his conscience even for the moment. Reluctantly, therefore, 
Confucius resigned his post and left the capital." — Confucianism^ pp. 
38, 39. 



CONFUCIANISM, 24I 

this inscription : " The most sagely ancient teacher, 
the all-accomplished, all-informed king, K'ung-foo- 
Tse — king without a kingdom, yet reigning in hearts 
innumerable/* Hither the people come from all parts 
of the vast empire to honor his grave with votive offer- 
ings.^ 

1 " To the great temple adjoining the philosopher's tomb the emperor 
goes in state twice a year, and, having twice knelt and six times bowed 
his head to the earth, invokes the presence of the sage in these words : 
* Great art thou, O perfect sage. Thy virtue is full, thy doctrine is com- 
plete. Among mortal men there has not been thine equal. All kings 
honor thee. Thy statutes and laws have come gloriously down. Thou 
art the pattern of this imperial school. Reverently have the sacrificial 
vessels been set out. Full of awe we sound our drums and bells.' 
The spirit being now supposed to be present, the ceremony is gone 
through of presenting the appropriate offerings, which consist, accord- 
ing to circumstances, of pieces of satin, wine, salted tiger's flesh, dried 
fish, dried and minced venison, minced hare, minced fish, a pure black 
bullock, a sheep or a pig. The officiating mandarin then reads the fol- 
lowing prayer : * On this month of this year, I, the emperor, offer a 
sacrifice to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient teacher, the perfect sage, 
and say, O Teacher, in virtue equal to heaven and earth, whose doc- 
trines embrace the past times and the present, thou didst digest and 
transmit the six classics, and didst hand down lessons for all genera- 
tions. Now in this second month of spring (or autumn), in reverent 
observance of old statutes, with victims, silks, spirits and fruits, I care- 
fully offer sacrifice to thee. With thee are associated the philosopher 
Yen, continuator of thee; the philosopher Tsang, exhibitor of thy fun- 
damental principles; the philosopher Tsze-sze, transmitter of thee; and 
the philosopher Mencius, second to thee. Enjoy thou the offerings.* 
As will be inferred from this prayer, the image of Confucius does not 
stand alone, but is surrounded by images of his principal disciples, 
while in a hall at the back of that dedicated to him are ranged those 
of his ancestors. Occasionally different emperors have visited his tomb 
in Shan-tung, at which time the imperial pilgrims have worshiped with 
extraordinary solemnity at his shrine in the adjoining temple. K'ang- 
he, the most celebrated both as a ruler and a scholar of the emperors 
of the present dynasty, went on such a pilgrimage, and ' set the example 
16 



242 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

" Confucius ! Confucius ! how great was Confucius ! 
Betore him there was no Confucius ; 
Since him there has been no other. 
Confucius! Confucius! how great was Confucius !" 

The religion of the Chinese Empire, with its five 
hundred millions of people, embracing nearly one- 
half of the population of the entire globe, is little 
more than a personal reverence for this illustrious 
man. Its rites and ceremonies all cluster about his 
name. An acquaintance with his maxims constitutes 
the beginning and end of education. For twenty cen- 
turies they have been taught in every village school. 
To the people they are the only creed, the only law. 
Dr. S. Wells Williams says : '' He receives such homage 
from his fellow-men as no other man has ever had, and 
which amounts in reality to worship." Yet Dr. Legge, 
a profound student of Confucius and his system, passes 
this judgment upon him : " I am unable to regard him 
as a great man. He was not before his age, though he 
was above the mass of the officers and scholars of his 
time. He threw no new light on any of the questions 
which have a world-wide interest. He gave no impulse 
to religion. He had no sympathy with progress. His 
influence has been wonderful, but it will henceforth 
wane.'* 

What, then, is Confucianism ? 

Its Central Thought. — Its central thought is The 
Kingdom. 

In Christianity also we hear of a kingdom, by which 

of kneeling thrice in the dust, before the image of the sage.' " — Con- 
fucianism, pp. 163-165. 



CONFUCIANISM. 243 

IS variously meant the prevalence of virtue in human 
lives (Luke 12 : 20, 21 ; cf. Rom. 14 : 17), the influence 
of divine grace preceding the manifestation of the divine 
glory among men (Matt. 13), or the rule of the right- 
eous Lord in his heavens (Matt. 8:11) and over his 
redeemed earth (Rev. 12 : 9, 10). To secure the com- 
plete establishment of this kingdom is the prime pur- 
pose of every follower of Christ (Matt. 6 : 33). Its 
name is The Kingdom of God. But the kingdom of 
which Confucius dreamed, and toward which he con- 
stantly and most earnestly directed the minds of his 
pupils and followers, was of a much more material 
sort. It was purely a kingdom on earth and of the 
earth. Its name was China. 

" It so happens," says Dr. Matheson, " that this 
Chinese Empire, with its feudal ranks and its con- 
servative institutions, is itself the object of Chinese 
worship. The belief in millenarianism — that is to say, 
the expectation of a kingdom of heaven upon earth — 
has in all ages of the world found some place in the 
religious instinct. The vision of such a kingdom has 
never been wholly absent from the lives of men. It 
glittered before the eyes of the Parsee ; it shone in the 
imagination of Plato; it dominated the mind of the 
Jew; it sustained the heart of the early Christian. 
China, too, had her kingdom of heaven on earth, but 
with a difference. To the Parsee, to the Platonist, to 
the Jew and to the Christian the heavenly kingdom was 
something still to come; to the Chinaman it was some- 
thing which had already come. The Chinese Empire 
reveals to him the spectacle of a complete millenarian- 



244 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

ism — of a kingdom which exists no longer in a vision of 
the future, but in the actual experience of the passing 
hour. He believes that the social system in which he lives 
and moves is pervaded by a mysterious divine life/' ^ 

Further, the system of Confucius teaches *' that 
by pursuing the plain and practical duties of the hour 
man can actually make this world itself the king- 
dom of God — that the harmony of the universe is to 
be found, not in some transcendental, timeless sphere, 
but in the completed results of those seemingly trivial 
acts which make up the moral history of the individual 
human soul." (It will be ^^^x\ that the Chinese phi- 
losopher is not without disciples in this day ; the Ag- 
nostics are thinking his thoughts after him.) 

Characteristic Features. — This being the central 
thought in the system of Confucius, what are its 
characteristic features ? They are three : 

I. Filial Piety. — The system sets out with the idea 
of social order as prerequisite to the ideal government. 
Its basis of obligation rests on the secular power.^ In 
most other religions the leading idea is God. There 
is no God in the religion of China. It is purely politi- 
cal. The aim of Confucius was to reform the govern- 
ment of China, which he conceived might be best ac- 
complished by the reviving of certain healthful princi- 
ples which had prevailed in the traditional Golden Age. 

1 Faiths of the World. 

2 «' The Chinese does not first ask where Spiritual Intelligence dwells, 
and then confess that to this he must submit. But he starts with the 
belief in government or society, and then demands that all study or 
intelligence should be applied to the preservation of it." — F. D. 
Maurice, in Religions of the World, p. 86. 



* 



CONFUCIANISM, 245 

He therefore avoided all reference to God and eternal 
things.^ " While we know so little about life," said he 
to one of his disciples, '' how can we know anything 
about death ?" ^ He would not allow himself to indulge 
in fruitless dreams. The wrongs and tyrannies in the 
work-a-day world were real. Peace, safety, prosperity, 
these were substantial blessings to be sought for and 
enjoyed. What need of a heaven afar off if by these 
a heaven could be made on earth ? The Chinese people 
have a proverb which runs in this wise : 

**The Buddhist priests declare their Fo in the abyss to be; 
Say Lao's followers, * Paradise lies in the Eastern Sea;' 
But great Confucius' pupils look on real things around : 
Before their eyes the airs of spring, fresh blowing, brush the ground." 

The Lao referred to in this proverb is Laoutsee, an 
old man who believed in a Supreme Deity and was 
wont to philosophize about the future. To him Con- 
fucius listened with respectful attention, but afterward 

^ " What he heard of divine unseen, mysterious powers above man 
or above nature, or even in man and in nature, of some thing or 
person beyond the earthly emperor or the earthly father, he by no means 
denied. Whatever faith his countrymen had respecting the invisible 
world he would have wished to confirm. But he did not see his way 
in such inquiries : he could not trace the actual connection between 
them and practical life." — Religions of the World, p. 89. 

2 " On the subject of spirits, as on all matters relating to heavenly 
beings, Confucius was reticent. His mind was wrapt up in the things 
of this earth, and he looked upon all such subjects as obscure and un- 
profitable. That they were worthy of reverence he was ready to affirm, 
but he considered that constant reference to them was likely to lead to 
superstition. * Spirits are to be respected,' he said, * but to be kept at a 
distance ;' and in reply to a question put to him as to serving the spirits, 
he answered, * While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve 
their spirits?' " — Confucianism, p. 81. 



246 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

spoke of him as a theorist, a transcendental dreamer, 
who might better draw in his thoughts from misty and 
remote things to the evils nearer by. 

" What must I Do to be Saved?'' — The answer of 
Confucius to the question '' What must I do to be 
saved ?" was, *' Be a good citizen of China." 

His theory of government was patriarchal, " the em- 
bodiment of filial piety." The state is a large family, 
of which the emperor is Tien-tze, the great father of 
all. The humblest beggar in his dominions may claim 
protection as his child. The first duty of every citizen 
is reverence for his political father; his second, rever- 
ence for his father in the flesh. In no other country 
on earth are the obligations that flow from filial ties 
more thoroughly respected than in China. The great 
commandment, held inviolate by mandarin and slave, 
is this : Honor thy father. Yet this, observe, is a purely 
political maxim. There is no sentiment about it. The 
end in view is the conservation of order in the state.^ 
To that end the great father, Tien-tze, and all other 
fathers — who are regarded as his official aids in secur- 
ing a good government — must have the implicit and 
unquestioning obedience of every child.^ 

* " He taught that the sovereign was the father of his people, and as 
such entitled to the same obedience, mingled with reverence, which is 
due from a child to its parent. He claimed to a certain degree unlim- 
ited authority for the sovereign over the minister, father over the son, 
husband over the wife, elder brother over younger, and he enjoined 
kind and upright dealings among friends, thus inculcating as his leading 
tenets subordination to superiors and virtuous conduct." — Dr. S. Wells 
Williams, in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopcedia. 

2 " In reply to Tsze-chang's question, * How should a sovereign act 



CONFUCIANISM. 2^7 

Worship of Ancestors. — Here we discover the source 
of that Chinese phenomenon, the worship of ancestors. 
It is beheved that at death three spirits are hberated 
from the body; one of these occupies the grave, another 
seeks the invisible world, while the third takes up its 
residence in a memorial tablet.^ Thus every home has 
its ancestral tablets bearing the names of the honored 
dead. Twice a month with tapers and burning incense 

in order that he may govern properly ?' he replied : * Let him honor the 
five excellent and banish the four bad things.' The five good things 
are: (i) When the person in authority is beneficent without great ex- 
penditure; that is, when he makes more beneficial to his people the 
things from which they naturally derive benefit. (2) When he lays 
tasks on the people without their repining ; that is, when he chooses 
the labors which are proper and employs them on them. (3) When he 
pursues what he desires without being covetous; that is, when his de- 
sires are set on a benevolent government, and he realizes it. (4) When 
he maintains a dignified ease without being proud ; that is, whether he 
has to do with many people or with few, or with great things or with 
small, he does not dare to show any disrespect. (5) When he is 
majestic without being fierce; that is, when he adjusts his clothes and 
cap and throws a dignity into his looks, so that, thus dignified, he is 
looked at with awe. The four bad things are : (i) To put the people 
to death without having instructed them ; this is called cruelty. (2) To 
require from them suddenly the full tale of work without having given 
them warning; this is called oppression. (3) To issue orders as if 
without urgency at first, and when the time comes to insist upon them 
with severity; this is called injury. (4) And, generally speaking, to 
give pay or rewards to men, and yet do it in a stingy way ; this is called 
acting the part of a mere official." — Confucianis77i^ pp. 136, 137. 

^ " It is a great misfortune for a Chinaman to die in a foreign land 
away from home, for then he is deprived of the benefits of the offerings 
of his relatives and descendants. We see, therefore, why it is that the 
Chinese in California send home the bodies of their countrymen who 
die there. They have a fund for that purpose. The dead would take 
vengeance upon them if they did not perform the filial act." — C. C. 
Coffin. 



248 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the inmates of the home bow down before them. This 
is the universal custom of the empire. It is the nat- 
ural outgrowth of the patriarchal idea in society and 
the state. The living are in bondage unto the dead. 
And this is one of the mighty forces used in uphold- 
ing and perpetuating the government. It casts a halo 
of superstitious awe around the names of the fore- 
fathers, and gives to filial reverence the highest place 
among the virtues. Thus the word of the emperor, 
the great father, becomes as the oracles of God. 

11. Veneration for Learning. — The second character- 
istic of the Chinese religion is veneration for learning. 
This necessarily follows the proposition of Confucius 
that a political reformation could be accomplished 
only by returning to the wisdom of the former ages. 
The compilation of the sacred books was the imme- 
diate result of that thought. There are nine of these 
books. 

The Sacred Books. — (I.) The Five King, or canonical 
volumes. 

1. The Shu-king, or Book of Ancient History, giving 
the history of China from the earliest times to 720 b. c. 

2. The Shi-king, or Book of Ancient Poems, com- 
prising three hundred and eighty-five odes. The fol- 
lowing, translated by Dr. Legge, will serve as an ex- 
ample ; it is entitled *' A Pastoral Ode : an industrious 
wife awakens her husband at early dawn :" 

" ' Get up, husband, here's the day !' 

* Not yet, wife, the dawn's still gray.' 

* Get up, sir, and on the right 

See the morning star shines bright. 



J 



CONFUCIANISM. 249 

Shake off slumber, and prepare 
Ducks and geese to shoot and snare. 

* All your darts and lines may kill 
I will dress for you with skill. 
Thus a blithesome hour we'll pass, 
Brightened by a cheerful glass, 
"While your lute its aid imparts. 
To gratify and soothe our hearts.' " 

3. The Li-king, or Book of Ancient Rites and Cere- 
monies, containing rules of conduct for all occasions. 
This book is the Chinese standard of etiquette. It was 
the uniform custom of Confucius to lay great stress on 
the importance of decorum, which he himself illus- 
trated in all his actions. '' He did all," says Professor 
Douglas, " with the avowed object of being seen of men 
and of influencing them by his conduct. In the pres- 
ence of his prince we are told that his manner, though 
self-possessed, displayed respectful uneasiness. When 
he entered the palace or when he passed the vacant 
throne his countenance changed, his legs bent under 
him and he spoke as though he had scarcely breath to 
utter a word. When it fell to his lot to carry the royal 
sceptre he stooped his body, as though he were not 
able to bear its weight. If the prince came to visit 
him when he was ill, he had himself placed with his 
head to the east, and lay dressed in his court-clothes 
with his girdle across them." 

4. The Yih-king, or Book of Changes, relating par- 
ticularly to divination and similar mystic arts. '' This 
book," says Alexander F. Tytler, *' which has been held 
as a mysterious receptacle of the most profound know- 



250 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

ledge, and is on that account allowed to be consulted 
only by the sect of the learned, is now known to be 
nothing else than a superstitious and childish device 
for fortune-telling or divination. It is a table on which 
there are sixty-four marks or lines, one half short and 
the other half long, placed at regular intervals. The 
person who consults the Yih-king for divining some 
future event takes a number of small pieces of rod, 
and, throwing them down at random, observes care- 
fully how their accidental position corresponds to the 
marks on the table, from which, according to certain 
established rules, he predicts either good or bad for- 
tune. 

5. The Chun-tsiu, or Spring and Autumn, so called 
because, as Confucius says, " its commendations are 
life-giving as the spring and its censures life-withering 
as autumn." It is a record of political events from 720 
to 480 B. c. 

(11.) The Four Shoo^ or writings. These are collec- 
tions of the wisdom of Confucius and his disciples. 

I. The Lun-Yu; Analects, or Table-talk of Con- 
fucius. The following extracts will serve to illustrate 
the character of this volume : 

'' The Master saith. Shall I teach you what know- 
ledge is ? When you know a thing, to maintain that 
you know it, and when you do not know it, to confess 
your ignorance, — this is knowledge." — '' With coarse 
rice to eat, water to drink and my bended arm for a 
pillow I may be happy ; but riches and honor without 
virtue are as a floating cloud." — " Extravagance leads 
to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness." 



CONFUCIANISM. 2^\ 

2. The Ta-Hio, or Great Learning, by Tsang-Sin, a 
disciple. The following is an example : " The ancients 
who sought to establish virtue throughout the empire 
began by ordering well their own estates. Wishing to 
establish virtue in the state, they began by regulating 
their own household. Wishing to establish virtue in 
the household, they began- by looking to themselves. 
Wishing to cultivate their individual characters, they 
began by rectifying their hearts." 

3. The Chung-Yung, or Doctrine of the Mean. The 
following is an extract : " The Master saith. Perfect is 
the virtue which is according to The Mean. How rare 
have been the people who could practice it !" — '* If there 
be no stirrings of joy or anger, grief or pleasure, the 
mind is in Equilibrium. If those feelings be awakened 
to act in due proportion, the mind is in Harmony. This 
Equilibrium is the root of human action, and this Har- 
mony is the proper path for all." 

4. The Works of Mencius, the Master's most illus- 
trious disciple. The following will illustrate the gen- 
eral character of this book : '' Mencius said. The per- 
fect fruit of benevolence is the service of one's parents ; 
of righteousness, the service of one's elder brother ; 
and of wisdom, the service of those two things and 
abiding in them." — '' I love life and I love righteous- 
ness. If I cannot have both, I will let life go and 
choose righteousness." 

These volumes are, for the most part, in prose, 
monotonous, sombre, gray, with neither freshness nor 
life. To us Anglo-Saxons, who have mercury in our 
veins, the proverbs of the most sagely ancient teacher 



252 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

and his sublimely wise disciples are as dull as an alma- 
nac ; but the Mongolian sits hour after hour upon his 
bamboo mat following the lines with his long finger- 
nails, his eyes half closed, oblivious of the bustling 
world, murmuring over and over again the celestial 
words. 

For two thousand years or more these sacred vol- 
umes have been the substratum of Chinese literature. 
They are the principal textbooks in all institutions of 
learning. There is no possibility of political prefer- 
ment without a thorough familiarity with The Five 
King and The Four Shoo. The literati are the ruling 
class. There is no promotion except for scholarship. 
Once in three years there is an examination of candi- 
dates for degrees. No student can be entered as a 
candidate unless he has previously studied the whole 
system of Confucius. The successful competitors in 
the course of time become the rulers of the empire.^ 
Thus it is evident that China, commonly regarded as a 
monarchy, is really an aristocracy — an aristocracy of 
learning. We, in their eyes, are barbarians because of 
the light value we put upon scholarship. Ours, they 
say, is an aristocracy of birth or of riches — that is, of 
accident — but theirs is an aristocracy of worth. Here, 

^ " The bachelors, or those who are successful, are triennially sent for 
renewed examination in the provincial capital before two examiners 
deputed from the general board of public education. The licentiates, 
thus sifted out, now offer themselves for final examination before the 
imperial board at Pekin. Suitable candidates for vacant posts are thus 
selected. There is no one who is not liable to such an inquisition. 
When vacancies occur they are filled from the list of approved men, 
who are gradually elevated to the highest honors." — Draper's Intel- 
lectual Development of Europe, ii. 396. 



M 



CONFUCIANISM. 253 

indeed, is something for us to learn from the people 
of far Cathay. 

III. Conservatism. — The third characteristic of this 
religion is conservatism. It is scarcely strange that a 
nation sitting at the feet of Confucius should wrap 
itself up in a complacent aversion to progress, for his 
favorite precept was, ''Walk in the trodden paths." 
China has been at a standstill for twenty centuries. It 
is the only land on earth of which it cannot be said, 

<* The old order changeth, giving place to new, 
And God fulfills himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'' 

No Progress. — " In China,'' it has been significantly 
said, "whatever is gray with age becomes religion." 
Other nations have learned to worship the rising sun, 
but Confu(!ius stood with his face toward the past, 
teaching his followers to revere whatever is old and 
dead. The language of China is written in square 
characters just as it was twenty centuries ago. The 
people dress as they did then. Innovation is treason.^ 

^ " It will be seen that in government, as with everything else, Con- 
fucius strove with all his might to carry his countrymen back to the 
ideal times of Kings Wan and Woo. He refused to recognize the 
changes which were foreshadowed by the growth of new and vigorous 
states and by the decrepitude of the imperial kingdom of Chow, and 
attempted to bolster up that which was already falling to pieces, and to 
suppress the aspirations of those who, as must have been obvious to 
every one but himself, were destined to fight for the mastery over the 
ruins of the royal house. The sum of his teachings may be described 
in his own words : * Follow the seasons of Hea. Ride in the state 
chariots of Yin. Wear the ceremonial cap of Chow. Let the music 
be the Shaou, with its pantomimes. Banish the songs of Ch'ing and keep 
far from specious talkers.' '' — Confucianism ^ pp. 138, 139. 



254 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

One of the Manchu emperors recently sent out an 
edict against the binding of the feet, but the low mut- 
terings of an insurrection forced him to withdraw it. 
A strip of land between Shanghai and Woo-Sung was 
bought up some years ago by foreign residents, who 
proceeded to build a railway between those points ; but 
the government of Peking tore it up. Thus the whole 
policy of the state is repressive — to stand still, to abide 
among the sepulchres of ancient days, poring over the 
parchments of the sages. 

*' In arts, in manners, in the physical features of its 
inhabitants, in mental and moral portraiture, in lan- 
guage and in religion, China has been of all lands the 
most untouched by time. It has resisted alike the in- 
roads of matter and of mind. Like other countries, it 
has been subjected to the incursions and the conquests 
of barbarians, but, in a manner unknown to other coun- 
tries, it has assimilated its conquerors to its own civili- 
zation. It has been subjected to spiritual invasion ; 
foreign religions, like foreign tribes, have tried to settle 
on its soiL But here, too, the result has been the 
same: the old Confucian faith has not forbidden the 
advent of the new, but it has gradually succeeded in 
drawing it nearer to itself A civilization which has 
thus been able not only to resist new temporal in- 
fluences, but eventually to appropriate these influences 
to itself, most certainly presents a spectacle of con- 
servatism which is unique in the history of the world." ^ 

Not Properly a Religion, — These, then, are the three 
distinguishing features of Confucianism : filial piety, 

1 The Faiths of the World, p. 63. 



11 



CONFUCIANISM. 255 

reverence for learning and conservatism. The reader 
has, without doubt, come to the conclusion that there 
is little or nothing of religion in this system. The 
word " religion " is best taken in its original sense, '' a 
binding back," the thought being of a restoration of 
the soul to the everlasting truth and love of God. But 
Confucianism points no higher than a man's head. It 
practically says, *' A principle of order is the one thing 
worthy of reverence ; we can dispense with God." ^ It 
has been justly called a prosaic belief dignified with 
the name of a religion. It may be remarked, in pass- 
ing, as a most singular circumstance, that a philosophy 
whose very life is in the patriarchal idea should wholly 
omit to reverence or even recognize Him who is Abba, 
the Father of all. 

There is, however, a solitary spot in China where 
homage is paid to the Deity. Near by the city of 
Peking is a temple over whose gateway is inscribed, 
" To the Supreme Ruler of the Universe." Once every 
year with magnificent parade the emperor comes hither 
alone and offers a bullock on the altar. But the people 
have no part nor lot in this ceremony. They are lit- 
erally "without God," yet not without gods. 

Popular Idolatry. — Polytheism is ever the boon com- 
panion of atheism. The multitudes of the people, while 
professing Confucianism, do not hesitate to patronize 
at the same time the shrines of Buddhism and Taoism. 

^ " It has been questioned whether Confucius even did not doubt the 
existence of a divine Power, and regard the universe as a vast self-sus- 
taining mechanism ; but he undoubtedly gave occasion to his disciples 
for such a belief by his silence upon the subject and his use of the 
indefinite term * heaven.'" — S. Wells Williams. 



2S6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Therefore, though their great master taught them to 
worship nothing, the empire swarms with gods. 

Results. — What are the results ? What are the practi- 
cal fruits of Confucianism in this populous empire 
where it has prevailed for these two thousand years? 

1. No Independence of Thought. — Its first effect is 
seen in an utter absence of independent, progressive 
thought. The people of China have so long been read- 
ing the dull, iterative maxims of the sages that their 
minds are benumbed. Not even the most venturesome 
thinker dares to pass beyond " the established bound- 
ary-line of precedent." Their ideas are rusty and 
mildewed, and, like their faces, their houses and their 
junks, are all made after one pattern. They are doing 
as Confucius bade them, walking in the old paths. 

2. No Ambition. — It has killed hope and ambition 
and all the nobler impulses of the heart. For Con- 
fucianism is a low form of materialism ; it cuts the soul's 
wings. The inhabitants of China are a sordid race. 
They are taught in the sacred books that the seat of 
the understanding is the stomach ; and their lives are 
passed, accordingly, in toiling for meat that perisheth. 

" To be content's their natural desire ; 
They ask no angel's wings nor seraph's fire." 

The career of their ^reat teacher is their ideal of 
life. '' At fifteen," he says, " I had my mind bent upon 
learning ; at thirty I stood firm ; at fifty I knew the 
celestial decrees ; at seventy I kept the law." 

3. No Good Cheer. — The people of China rarely sing: 
they know nothing of romance ; the golden glow of 



CONFUCIANISM, 257 

life has been supplanted by plain matter of fact. Their 
religion has made them a race of washermen and 
coolies, dull, plodding and as heedless of eternity as 
moles. There is a mighty truth in the old fable of 
Prometheus ; the fires that give brightness and fervor 
to human life must be brought down from God. And 
if there be no God ? Then there can be no light, no 
burning of the soul with eager longings, no life beyond 
one's tools and daily bread. Thus it is said of the dis- 
ciples of Confucius that all stars shine to them in the 
heavens behind ; none beckon before. Verily, " a 
hundred years " of our Anglo-Saxon hope and vigor 
are worth "a cycle of Cathay." 

4. No Common Morality. — And what has been the 
result of this system on the outward morals of China ? 
It is the land of the opium-smoker, that lowest and most 
bestial of inebriates. It is the land of infanticide ; for 
'' What is the good," they say, *' of rearing daughters ?" 
It is the land of concubinage and slavery. Woman is 
not the helpmate, but the slave, of man. Confucius 
thought it an unpardonable weakness to bemoan the 
death of his faithful wife ; she was only a woman.^ It 

^ " He (Confucius) permits divorce for any one of seven reasons : 
* When a woman cannot live in peace with her father-in-law or mother- 
in-law; when she cannot bear children; when she is unfaithful; when, 
by the utterance of calumnies or indiscreet words, she disturbs the peace 
of the house ; when her husband has for her an unconquerable repug- 
nance ; when she is an inveterate scold ; when she steals anything from 
her husband's house,' — in any of these cases her husband may put her 
away." — Cyclopaedia of Biography, p. 418. 

" The failure to recognize the sanctity of the marriage bond is a great 
blot in the Confucian system. It has in a great measure destroyed do- 
mesticity, it has robbed women of their lawful influence, and has 
17 



25 8 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

has been said that the life of a Chinese woman is a 
continuous wail from her cradle to her grave. This — 
though the five sacred books were flawless, and though 
the schools were a thousandfold more numerous than 
they are — would stamp the Chinese Empire as a bar- 
barous land. 

Of all the nations of the earth, China affords the 
best illustration of the inadequacy of a written code 
of morals.^ The man who would live up to the pre- 

degraded them into a position which is little better than slavery. * Men, 
being firm by nature,' said Seun-tsze, * are virtuous, and women, being 
soft, are useful.' This saying justly represents the estimate commonly 
held of the relative standing of the two sexes.'* — Confucianism,'^. 128. 
" A slavish submission is a woman's highest duty, and no better 
description can be given of the various fates awaiting sons and daugh- 
ters than that quoted from the Book of Poetry, where the poet forecasts 
the future of King Seuen : 

* Sons shall be his (the king's) ; on couches lulled to rest 

The little ones, enrobed, with sceptres play ; 
Their infant cries are loud as stern behests ; 

Their knees the vermeil covers shall display. 
As king hereafter one shall be addressed ; 

The rest, our princes, all the states shall sway. 
And daughters also to him shall be born : 

They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep; 
Their playthings tiles, their dress the simplest worn ; 

Their part alike from good and ill to keep, 
And ne'er their parent's heart to cause to mourn — 

To cook his food and spirit malt to keep.' " 

Ibid., pp. 124, 125. 

^ Toward the close of the seventeenth century the emperor K'ang-he 
issued sixteen maxims, founded on the teachings of the sage, for the 
guidance of the people, whose morality *' had for some time been daily 
declining, and whose hearts were not as of old." He summed up, as it 
were, all the essential points in the Confucian doctrine, and thus he 
wrote : 



CONFUCIANISM. 259 

cepts of Confucius would be, indeed, a " superior man." ^ 
But there is apparently no endeavor to adjust the life 

" I. Esteem most highly filial piety and brotherly submission, in order 
to give due prominence to the social relations. 

** 2. Behave vi^ith generosity to the branches of your kindred, in order 
to illustrate harmony and benignity. 

" 3. Cultivate peace and concord in your neighborhoods, in order to 
prevent quarrels and litigations. 

"4. Recognize the importance of husbandry and the culture of the 
mulberry tree, in order to ensure a sufficiency of clothing and food. 

" 5. Show that you prize moderation and economy, in order to pre- 
vent the lavish waste of your means. 

*' 6. Make much of the colleges and seminaries, in order to make 
correct the practice of the scholars. 

" 7. Discountenance and banish strange doctrines, in order to exalt 
the correct doctrine. 

" 8. Describe and explain the laws, in order to warn the ignorant and 
obstinate. 

** 9. Exhibit clearly propriety and yielding courtesy, in order to make 
manners and customs good. 

" 10. Labor diligently at your proper callings, in order to give settle- 
ment to the aims of the people. 

"II. Instruct your sons and younger brothers, in order to prevent 
them from doing what is wrong. 

" 12. Put a stop to false accusations, in order to protect the honest 
and the good. 

" 13. Warn against sheltering deserters, in order to avoid being in- 
volved in their punishments. 

" 14. Promptly and fully pay your taxes, in order to avoid the urgent 
requisition of your quota. 

"15. Combine in hundreds and tithings, in order to put an end to 
thefts and robbery. 

" 16. Study to remove resentments and angry feelings, in order to 
show the importance due to the person and life." — Confucianisfu^ pp. 
167-199. 

^ " ' The superior man forms a leading feature in the Confucian phil- 
osophy. Nine things he strove after: in seeing to see clearly, in hear- 
ing to hear distinctly, in expression to be benign, in his demeanor to be 
decorous, in speaking to be sincere, in his duties to be respectful, in 



26o THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to such teachings. One who has long labored as a 
missionary in China says : '' The literati, among whom 
we might expect to find a pure morality if anywhere, 
are inveterately addicted to lying, treachery and extor- 
tion. Among the rulers justice is unknown. Bribery 
and oppression constitute the universal practice among 
the officials of every grade. Avariciousness sways the 
heart of all classes. There is no mode of deception 
and fraud, no trick nor art in trade, no quackery and 
no jugglery, in which the Chinese are not perfect 
adepts. Deception and lying are so common that 
they have almost lost the consciousness that they are 
wrong. Backbiting and quarreling, slandering and 
cursing, intrigues and broils, are universal. Pilfering 
and theft, extortion, robbery and piracy, suicide, infant- 
icide and murder, lotteries and gambling-shops, opium- 
doubt to inquire, in resentment to think of difficulties, when he saw an 
opportunity for gain to think of righteousness. Three things he avoided : 
in youth, when the physical powers are not settled, he avoided lust; in 
manhood, when the physical powers are in full vigor, he avoided quar- 
relsomeness; in old age, when the animal powers are decayed, he 
avoided covetousness. 

" The superior man was righteous in all his ways ; his acts were 
guided by the laws of propriety and were marked by strict sincerity. 
Being without reproach, he was also without fear, and, having studied 
deeply, his mind was untroubled by doubt or misgiving. Nothing put 
him out of countenance, for wisdom, humanity and valor were his con- 
stant companions. Of the ordinances of Heaven, of great men and 
the word of sages he alone stood in respectful awe, and this not out of 
servility, but because he possessed sufficient knowledge to comprehend 
the wisdom embodied in those powers. Mere eloquence had no effect 
upon him, and he was careless about the animal comforts of this life. 
He laughed at want, for his aims were directed toward * the heavenly 
way,' not toward eating; and for the same reason wealth and poverty 
were not causes of anxiety to him.'' — Confucianism^ pp. '^'^^ 89. 



I 



CONFUCIANISM. 26 1 

dens, are common everywhere." A missionary of the 
Enghsh Church says : *' Romans ch. i and Ephesians 
ch. 4 apply fully to the Chinese. Their great idol- 
atrous gatherings in the city, and especially in the 
country districts, are accompanied by wickedness of 
every kind. They are a much worse people than they 
look." 1 

All this in spite of the fact that Confucianism 
avows itself to be distinctly a moral system. Con- 
fucius taught the Golden Rule in the negative form : 
" What you do not like when done to yourself, do 
not that to others."^ The five cardinal virtues of 
his system are — (i) Benevolence, (2) Duty, (3) De- 
corum, (4) Knowledge, and (5) Faith. But morality is 
a dead thing if piety has not quickened it, and moral 
precepts, however wise and good, can take no vital 
hold on a people who decline to think of God. 

We must judge Confucianism by its fruits. Of all 
the false religions, none is more deadening in its in- 
fluence on the moral nature. Between two systems 
so radically unlike as Confucianism and Christianity it 
is scarcely possible to institute a comparison. The 
latter is a religion binding back the soul to God ; the 

' Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Magazitte, Feb., 1874. 

2 " It does not seem to us that in uttering this precept Confucius really- 
rose above his usual governmental theory — really meant to suggest more 
than a law for the well-being of the state. The thought in his mind 
was probably this : If you do evil to others, you may be sure they will 
retaliate on yourself the same form of evil, for revenge in kind of in- 
jury is an instinct of humanity. Such retaliations can end in nothing 
but political anarchy ; avoid them for the sake of good government, 
and in order to avoid them shun that which may cause Ihcm." — Faiths 
of the World, p. 72. 



262 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

former is a code of secular maxims and injunctions 
having for its only ends the well-being of society and 
the state. The one bids us look up and away to those 
things which are unseen and eternal ; the other absorbs 
all thought and effort in the present hour. The one, 
as with a two-edged sword, lays bare the soul's defile- 
ment, then points to Calvary and the flowing blood that 
cleanseth ; the other finds sin a dark, inevitable fact, 
and says, " There is no remedy ; the dying must die.'* 
No remedy ? No help ? Lord, deliver us from a 
philosophy of despair, and help us ever more and more 
to love the glorious gospel which giveth hope as an 
anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast, taking hold 
of that within the veil. 



\ 



IX. 
ISLAM. 



I. The Sacred Books : The Koran. 
II. Theology : The Creed. 

( 1 ) There is One God. 

Central Thought: Kismet. 

(2) Mohammed is his Prophet. 

The teachings of Mohammed in respect to sin, 
death, resurrection, judgment, heaven, hell, etc. 

III. Ethics : A Ceremonial System. 

" What shall I do to be saved f Observe the Five Pillars 
of Practice. 

IV. yurisprtidence : A Politico-religious System. 

War, Slavery, Polygamy, etc. 
V. Fruits of the Syste77i : Sensuality, Cruelty, etc. 



IX. ISLAM. 

The Kaaba, — When Adam and Eve were expelled 
from Paradise they came in their wanderings to the 
edge of the Arabian desert — so runs the tradition — 
and there built the Kaaba in precise imitation of the 
temple wherein they had worshiped in the Garden. It 
was subsequently swept away by the Flood, but an 
angel revealed its site to Hagar and Ishmael, who 
quenched their thirst at its well Zem-Zem. A neigh- 
boring tribe of Amalekites, attracted by the waters, 
pitched their tents there and called the settlement 
Mecca. They strengthened the hands of Ishmael in 
the rebuilding of the Kaaba, and to their assistance 
came the angel Gabriel, bringing from Paradise a semi- 
circular stone which to this day reposes in an outer 
corner of the wall, smoothed and blackened by the 
devout kisses of sinful men. 

Birth of Mohammed. — In the Year of the Elephant, 
A. D. 570, there was joy in the house of the venerable 
Abdallah, the custodian of this black stone. A child 
was born who, opening his eyes to the light, was heard 
distinctly to exclaim, '' God is great, and I am his 
prophet !" The air was full of portents. The sacred 
fire of Zoroaster, which had been jealously guarded 
for centuries, was extinguished by the dawning of the 

265 



266 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

brighter light. The evil spirits betook themselves to 
the abyss of darkness. In due time the child received 
the name Mohammed, " the praised." At three years 
of age he experienced what might be called a change 
of heart, the angel Gabriel opening his breast and 
squeezing out the black drop of sin. Left motherless 
at six, he fell into a habit of brooding and grew 
morbidly fond of silence and solitude. He suffered, 
moreover, from some malady — probably epilepsy or 
hysteria — which rendered his mind peculiarly impress- 
ible. In early manhood he was employed as camel- 
driver by a rich merchant's widow, Hadijah, who, 
enamored of his manly beauty, became his wife. Her 
wealth exalted him among the noble sons of Ishmael, 
and for her conjugal devotion she was given an im- 
mortal place among the four perfect women. In lead- 
ing her caravans he came into contact with the Jewish 
and Christian communities of Arabia, thus acquiring a 
limited knowledge of their Scriptures and traditions, 
which he afterward put to a most effective use. 

Descent of the Koran, — At the age of forty he re- 
tired to a cave in the desert, three miles from Mecca, 
where he dreamed strange dreams and saw wonderful 
visions.^ One night Gabriel appeared before him hold- 

^ " He was visited by supernatural appearances, mysterious voices 
accosting hirn as the Prophet of God : even the stones and trees joined 
in the whispering. He himself suspected the true nature of his malady, 
and to his wife Chadizah he expressed a dread that he was becoming 
insane. It is related that as they sat alone a shadow entered the room. 
" Dost thou see aught ?' said Chadizah, who, after the manner of Ara- 
bian matrons, wore her veil. * I do,' said the prophet. Whereupon 
she uncovered her face, and said, ' Dost thou see it now ?' — * I do not.' 



4j 



ISLAM. 267 

ing a silken scroll and commanding him to read in the 
name of the Lord. Mohammed answered that he had 
never learned to read ; whereupon the angel shook him 
thrice, uttered certain cabalistic words, and, lo ! the in- 
scription became clear as light. This is known as the 
prophet's '* call." The words uttered by the angel 
were these: 

** Read ! in the name of thy Lord : in the name of the Lord, 
Who created man from a drop of congealed blood. 
Read ! for the Lord is the generous One 
Who hath given the Writing, 
And teacheth the ignorant to read it." 

This writing on the silken scroll was the first install- 
ment of the Koran, the heaven-sent Book. At the 
conclusion of his interview with the angel the face 
of Mohammed was of a ghastly hue and covered with 
perspiration like beads of silver, his ears were filled 
with the sound of bells and his limbs trembled under 
him. In his desperation he was about to commit suicide 
when, faithful husband that he was, it occurred to him 
to take counsel of Hadijah. On hearing what had oc- 
curred, she forthwith did obeisance and declared him 
verily a prophet of God. Thus she won for herself an 
immortal name as the first convert of Islam. The next 

— * Glad tidings to thee, O Mohammed !' exclaimed Chadizah; * it is an 
angel, for he has respected my unveiled face ; an evil spirit vv^ould not.* 
As his disease advanced these spectral illusions became more frequent ; 
from one of them he received the divine commission. * I,' said his wife, 
* will be thy first believer ;' and they knelt down in prayer together. 
Since that day nine thousand millions of human beings have acknowl- 
edged him to be a prophet of God." — Draper's Intellectual Develop- 
ment of Europe^ i. 330. 



268 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to yield allegiance was the freedman Zaid ; the next, 
Mohammed's cousin Ali ; the next, Abu-bekr, and 
others slowly followed. The people of Mecca gave 
little heed or credence to the pretensions of their 
townsman. He was indeed a prophet without honor 
among his own. At the end of five years he had less 
than fifty followers, and many of these were of the 
servile class.^ 

PersecMtion. — Whether we regard him as knave, 
fanatic or sincere reformer, it is impossible not to ad- 
mire the patient continuance of this man. He was 
troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, 
but not in despair. Driven out by the people of Mecca, 
he resorted with his scant following to a cave in the 
suburbs, where for three years they " suffered all the 
privations of a beleaguered garrison." At this time, for 
his encouragement — so the record runs — the prophet 
was carried upon a winged steed to Jerusalem, where 
he met the holy convocation of prophets, and, being 
lifted into the seventh heaven, communed with God. 

The Hejira. — At length, in the year 622, he fled to 
Medina, taking his disciples with him. This flight is 
called " The Hejira," and marks the beginning of the 

^ " The incarcerations and tortures, chiefly by thirst in the burning 
rays of the sun, to which these humble converts were subjected to induce 
their recantation and adoration of the national idols, touched the heart 
of Mohammed, and by divine authority he permitted them, under cer- 
tain circumstances, to deny their faith so long as their hearts were stead- 
fast in it. Thus : * Whoever denieth God after he hath believed, except 
him who shall be compelled against his will, whose heart continueth 
steadfast in the faith, shall be chastised ' (Koran, Surah xvi.)." — Islafu, 
p. 76. 



ISLAM. 269 

Mohammedan era. The fugitives, being pursued, took 
refuge in a ravine on Mount Thaur. In this soHtude 
the heart of Abu-bekr failed him, and he said, " They 
be many that fight against us ; we are only two." — 
** Not so," answered the prophet ; " we seem but two, 
but Allah is a third among us." Their pursuers came 
to the mouth of the cavern and peered in, but a divinely- 
commissioned spider had there woven its web and a 
pair of brooding wood-pigeons forbade further search. 
After three days the faithful ventured forth and resumed 
their journey. On reaching Medina their leader was 
received with glad acclamations as a prophet of God. 

Islam, — Now began the organization of Islam. The 
call to prayer was uttered from the minarets ; the Cres- 
centade was proclaimed. And here we mark a trans- 
formation in Mohammed's character. He was no 
more, henceforth, the pure-minded, kindly-disposed, 
long-suffering dreamer of dreams, but a red-handed 
fanatic and sensualist.^ So true is it, as one of the 
old poets wrote, that when Ambition comes to court 
Dominion, 

" all the hireling equipage of virtues, 
Faith, Honor, Justice, Gratitude and Friendship, 
Is discharged at once." 2 

It was now announced by the prophet that Islam was 

^ " The peaceful preacher of righteousness spent the last ten years 
of his life in training an army of fanatical warriors. His character be- 
came brutalized, his life sensual. He appealed to divine sanction for 
his licentiousness. The early purity of his soul vanished : he changed 
into a man of cunning and of blood." — Dr. Lees, in Faiths of the 
Worlds p. 312. 

' ** He (Mohammed) adds another, and perhaps the greatest, illustra- 



270 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to be propagated by the sword. No quarter must be 
given to unbelievers. '' Fight against them until there 
be no idolater left to oppose us, and until the only 
religion shall be that of Allah the true God." ^ In 623 
a company of Mohammedan followers, going out from 

tion to the long list of noble souls whose natures have become subdued 
to that which they worked in — who have sought high ends by low 
means — who, talking of the noblest truths, descend into the meanest 
prevarications, and so throw a doubt on all sincerity, faith and honor. 
Such was the judgment of a great thinker — Goethe — concerning Mo- 
hammed. He believes him to have been at first profoundly sincere, 
but he says of him that afterward * what in his character is earthly 
increases and develops itself; the divine retires and is obscured; his 
doctrine becomes a means rather than an end. All kinds of practices 
are employed, nor are horrors wanting.' Goethe intended to write a 
drama upon Mohammed to illustrate the sad fact that every man who 
attempts to realize a great idea comes in contact with the lower world, 
must place himself on its level in order to influence it, and thus often 
compromises his higher aims, and at last forfeits them." — Clarke's 
Ten Great Religions^ p. 468. 

^ "In 631, Mohammed issued an important command, the crowning- 
stone of the system he had raised, which shows at once the power he 
wielded and the strong hold his doctrines had already taken throughout 
Arabia. Refusing to be present himself during the ceremonies of the 
pilgrimage, he commissioned Ali to announce to the assembled multi- 
tudes in the valley of Mina that at the expiration of the four sacred 
months the prophet would hold himself absolved from every obligation 
or league with idolaters — that after that year no unbeliever would be 
allowed to perform the pilgrimage or to visit the holy places ; and, 
further, he gave direction that either within or without the sacred ter- 
ritory war was to be waged with them, that they were to be killed, be- 
sieged and laid in wait for * wheresoever found.' He ordains, however, 
that if they repent and pay the legal alms they are to be dismissed 
freely ; but as regards * those unto whom the Scriptures have been de- 
livered (Jews and Christians, etc.) they are to be fought against until 
they pay tribute by right of subjection and are reduced low.' " — Islam, 

p. 178. 



ISLAM. 271 

Medina, waylaid a merchant caravan bound for Mecca 
and plundered it. That day the Moslem tiger had its 
first taste of blood, and it has ravaged the earth from 
then until now. The city of Mecca fell, a. d. 630, before 
an army of ten thousand led by Mohammed in person ; 
the three hundred and sixty-five idols of the Kaaba 
were cast down, and from the summit of that venerable 
shrine Allah was proclaimed the only God. Thence- 
forth the future of the new religion was assured. From 
every quarter the sheiks of the Ishmaelitic tribes came 
flocking to the standard of Islam. 

The Prophet's Death. — The prophet died A. d. 632.^ 
The 1 2th of Rabi (corresponding to our June 8th) is 
observed as a triple anniversary, marking his birth, 
hejira and death. At his grave the following prayer 
was offered by Abu-bekr : " Peace be unto thee, O 
prophet of God, and the mercy of the Lord and his 
blessing ! We bear witness that the prophet of the 
Lord hath delivered the message revealed to him, hath 
fought for the true religion until God crowned it with 

^ " About the 8th of June, 632, he had regained sufficient strength to 
make a final visit to the mosque. Viewing with joy the devotion of 
his followers, who on the news of his illness had assembled in crowds, 
he proclaimed that he had made lawful to them only what God had ap- 
proved ; that each one of them must work out his own acceptance with 
God, inasmuch as he himself had no power to save them; and, after 
discharging some small claims, he returned exhausted and fainting to 
Ayesha's room. With his head on her lap he prayed for assistance in 
his last agonies and for admission to the companionship of God. Ayesha 
tried in every way to soothe the sufferings of his last moments. Ejac- 
ulatory words at intervals escaped his lips : * Eternity of Paradise,* 
* Pardon,' * The glorious associates on high,' and then all was still. 
The prophet of Mecca was dead." — Islam ^ p. 184. 



272 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

victory, hath fulfilled the injunction to worship the 
Only One, hath drawn us unto himself and been kind 
and tender-hearted toward all the faithful, hath sought 
no recompense for declaring the true faith, and hath 
not sold it for a price at any time. Amen ! amen !" ^ 

Conquest. — The prophet was dead, but his work of 
conquest was not suspended. His sharp sword still 
flashed in the air. The Arab tribes, previously at war 
with each other, now rallied and went forth unitedly 
to overcome the world. Led on by the indomitable 
Khaled, " the Sword of God," they pushed their way 
northward over Syria, entered Africa and possessed 
themselves of the countries lying along the Mediter- 
ranean ; crossed into Europe, where they subjugated 
Spain and a considerable portion of France ; driven 

^ " Had he no relentings at the visible approach of the end ? Was 
he to go to the grave untouched by all the calamities he had brought 
upon mankind, the blood he had shed, the multitudes he had beguiled? 
He had no touch of remorse for any of these things ; rather, he con- 
tinued firmer in his course than ever — seemed more persuaded of the 
genuineness of his mission and uttered prophecies of the universal ex- 
tension of his faith. * When the angels ask thee who thou art/ he said 
as the body of his son was lowered into the tomb, * say, God is my 
Lord, the Prophet of God was my father, and my faith was Islam.' 
Islam continued his own faith till the last. He tottered to the mosque 
where Abu-bekr was engaged in leading the prayers of the congrega- 
tion, and addressed the people for the last time. * Everything happens,' 
he said, * according to the will of God, and has its appointed time, 
which is not to be hastened or avoided. My last command to you is 
that you remain united ; that you love, honor and uphold each other ; 
that you exhort each other to faith and constancy in belief and to the 
performance of pious deeds : by these alone men prosper; all else leads 
to destruction.' A few days after this there were grief and lamentation 
all over the faithful lands." — White's Eighteen Christiati Centuries^ 
p. 159. 



ISLAM. 273 

thence by Charles Martel, who smote them hip and 
thigh at the battle of Poictiers, A. d. 732, they faced 
about and swept over Persia and Afghanistan ; moved 
on into China, where there are at present four millions 
of Moslems ; and, advancing upon the territory of the 
Greeks, raised the Crescent over the towers of Con- 
stantinople ; thence they renewed from the East their 
attempt upon Europe, from which they were finally 
driven back by Sobieski, who overwhelmed them in 
a bloody engagement under the walls of Vienna, 
A. D. 1683. 

The territory of Islam extends to-day " from the 
Pacific Ocean at Peking to the Atlantic in Sierra 
Leone, over one hundred and twenty degrees of lon- 
gitude, embracing one hundred and seventy-five mil- 
lions of people/' 

The name '' Islam," by which this religion of Mo- 
hammed is characterized, is from a root signifying 
*'to be at rest." The name means therefore submis- 
sion to the divine will. 

I. The Sacred Books. — The Mohammedans say there 
are four foundations of the faith — namely : 

1. The Koran, or Scriptures of God. 

2. Hadith, or Traditional Sayings of Mohammed. 
These are regarded by the great Sunni sect as having 
no less authority than the Koran itself 

3. The Ijma, or Consensus of the Fathers, held to 
be final authority in questions not definitely settled by 
the Koran and traditions. 

4. The Quias, or Reasonings of the Learned, a text- 
book for Mohammedan schools. 

18 



274 ^-^^^ RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

The Koran. — Of these foundations it will be neces- 
sary to consider only the Koran. This is believed to 
be something more than an inspired book — nothing 
less indeed than the uncreated and eternal word of 
God. There have been other revelations, but this is 
held to contain the sum and substance of them all. 
The original text, known as " the mother of the Book,'* 
is said to have been in heaven from the beginning ; in 
fullness of time it was revealed to Mohammed by a 
process of " handing down '' called tanzil^ and was re- 
corded by his disciples on palm-leaves, white stones, 
leather, the shoulder-blades of sheep and camels and 
the breasts or memories of men. A year after the 
prophet's death the various portions of the book thus 
** handed down " were collected and published by the 
freedman Zaid. It is wholly in Arabic, and curses are 
invoked upon the impious wretch who shall presume 
to translate it. 

Its Contents, — The Koran is not quite as large as our 
New Testament. It is made up of visions, legends, 
plagiarized and distorted Bible-stories,^ apocryphal tra- 

^ " It cannot be doubted that Mohammed found opportunity for pros- 
ecuting his study of the Jewish histories, for he reproduces the minute 
details of the stories of Moses (Surah xxviii.), of Joseph (Surah xii.) and 
of others, though all are more or less mixed up with legends and 
apocryphal additions of his own. In his treatment of the Scriptures 
he shows no comprehensive grasp of Old-Testament teaching; his 
knowledge is purely superficial, touching only the outside shell of 
facts, and these are often distorted and strained to suit his own pur- 
poses, and abound in fanciful and incongruous details and fables. Thus 
he tells the story of the * Seven Sleepers,' dormant in the cave for three 
hundred and nine years, to illustrate God's care of those who avoid 
idolatry (Surah xviii.); the golden calf in the wilderness is made to low 



k 



ISLAM. 275 

ditions^ dogmas, moral maxims and civil laws. These 
are divided into one hundred and fourteen chapters, 
called '* surahs/' with such titles as " The Cow," 
" Thunder " and the like. Each surah begins with 
the words, '' In the name of the merciful and com- 
passionate God." ^ 

(Surah xx.); the children of Israel are seduced to idolatry by a Samar- 
itan; Joseph is stated to have been sorely tempted by the * Egyptian's 
wife,' and the women of Egypt cut themselves for the love of his beauty 
(Surah xii.) ; Joseph satisfies his father that he is still alive in Egypt by 
sending him an inner garment, the smell of which Jacob recognizes and 
is by it cured of his blindness ; the odor of the vest is borne on the air 
to the aged patriarch from Egypt to Canaan ; the people of the * City 
near the Sea' are changed into apes for fishing on the Sabbath (Surah 
iii.) ; Abraham, for speaking against idolatry practiced round him, is 
cast into a burning pile, but God makes the fire cold (Surah xxi. 69) ; the 
winds are said to have been subject to Solomon and to have run at his 
command ; the latter asserts himself to have been taught the language 
of birds (Surah xxvii.), and talks with a lapwing, which expresses its 
belief in the unity of God; a terrible genius (in orig. Efreet) brings to 
Solomon, in the twinkling of an eye, the queen of Sheba's throne ; Job 
strikes with his feet and a fountain springs up as a liniment for his 
sores; he is also ordered to beat his wife with rods." — Islam, p. 136. 

^ " The Koran in its philosophy is incomparably inferior to the writ- 
ings of Chakia Mouni, the founder of Buddhism ; in its science it is 
absolutely worthless. On speculative or doubtful things it is copious 
enough, but in the exact, where a test can be applied to it, it totally 
fails. Its astronomy, cosmogony, physiology are so puerile as to invite 
our mirth if the occasion did not forbid. They belong to the old times 
of the world, the morning of human knowledge. The earth is firmly 
balanced in its seat by the weight of the mountains ; the sky is sup- 
ported over it like a dome, and we are instructed in the wisdom and 
power of God by being told to find a crack in it if we can. Ranged 
in stories seven in number are the heavens, the highest being the habita- 
tion of God, whose throne — for the Koran does not reject Assyrian ideas 
— is sustained by winged animal forms. The shooting stars are pieces 
of red-hot stone thrown by angels at impure spirits when they approach 
too closely. Of God the Koran is full of praise, setting forth, often in 



2/6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

Its Literary Character, — The book is written in poetic 
form, or, to speak more accurately, in rhymed prose. 
The prophet has an exalted opinion of poetry. 

" Beneath God's throne a dazzling treasure lies, 
Whose opening key is but the poet's tongue; 
Without that key the wondrous hoard's supplies 

Could ne'er be brought on earth to old and young.'* 

There is a wide difference of opinion as to the literary 
character of the Koran, some Oriental scholars regard- 
ing it as a model of excellence, while others (as Pro- 
fessor Noldeke — see Encyclopcedia Britannica^ under 
''Mohammedanism"), deem it a "loose," "verbose/* 
"awkward," "slovenly" and altogether inartistic book. 

One of its most beautiful chapters is the " Fatiha," 
or preface, which is rendered by Burton as follows : 

*' In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate ! 
Praise be to Allah, who the three worlds made, 
The Merciful, the Compassionate ! 
The King of the Day of Fate ! 

not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it bitterly denounces those 
who give him any equals, and assures them that their sin will never be 
forgiven — that in the judgment-day they must answer the fearful ques- 
tion, * Where are my companions about whom ye disputed ?' — though it 
inculcates an absolute dependence on the mercy of God, and denounces 
as criminals all those who make a merchandise of religion — its ideas 
of the Deity are altogether anthropomorphic. God is only a gigantic 
man living in a paradise. In this respect, though exceptional passages 
might be cited, the reader rises from a perusal of the one hundred and 
fourteen chapters of the Koran with a final impression that they have 
given him low and unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising that one of 
the Mohammedan sects reads it in such a way as to find no difficulty in 
asserting that * from the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, 
and from the breast downward he is solid ; that he has curled black 
hair, and roars like a lion at ever}' watch of the night.' " — Draper's 
Intellectual Develop77ient of Europe ^ i. 342. 



ISLAM, 277 

Thee alone do we worship and of thee alone do we ask aid. 
Guide us to the path that is straight — 
The path of those to whom thy love is great, 
Not those on whom is hate, 
Nor those that deviate. Amen.*' 

The second surah, called '' The Verse of the Throne,'' 
is regarded by the Moslems with peculiar reverence, 
and is inscribed on the walls of mosques and worn as an 
amulet upon the breast. It is as follows : " God, there 
is no God but He, the Living, the Self-subsistent. Slum- 
ber takes him not, nor sleep. He is what is in the 
heavens and what is in the earth. Who is it that 
intercedes with him save by his permission? He 
knows what is before them and what is behind them, 
and they comprehend not aught of his knowledge but 
of what he pleases. His throne extends over the 
heavens and the earth, and it tires him not to guard 
them both, for he is high and grand." ^ 

One of the most impressive surahs is the hundred 
and first, entitled " The Striking," and having reference 
to the last judgment: " In that day we shall be like 
moths scattered abroad, and the mountains shall be- 
come like carded wool of various colors driven by the 
wind. Moreover, he whose balance shall be heavy 
with good works shall lead a pleasing life, but as to 
him whose balance shall be light, his dwelling shall be 
in the pit of hell. It is a burning fire." ^ 

Its Authority. — The authority of the Koran is held 
to be final and absolute in questions pertaining not 
only to theology, but also to science, philosophy and 

^ Lees. ^ Stobart. 



278 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

civil government. The book must not be touched 
with unwashen hands, and the eyes of an unbeliever 
must never gaze upon it. The Moslem living reveres 
it as a veritable fetich, and dying clasps it to his bosom 
as a passport to the regions of the blest. 

" I saw a Moslem work upon his shroud alone 
With earnest care, even as the silkworms weave their own. 

" In his illness it always near his bedside lay, 
And he wrote Koran-verses on it night and day. 

** When with that sacred script it was filled from side to side, 
He wrapped it round his body and in calmness died. 

** In that protecting robe, now buried in the ground, 
Still may he know the peace he in its writing found." ^ 

II. Theology. — The Creed, or '' Kalima!' — The most 
succinct statement of the Mohammedan belief is found 
in the A^<^//;;^<^, which may be said to correspond to our 
" Apostles' Creed." It is as follows : La Ilah illah 
Allah ; wa Muhammad Rusoul Allah — '' There is no 
god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet." The 
two propositions of this creed are co-ordinate and 
equally binding on the Moslem mind and conscience. 
Dr. Lees says of this Kalima, " It expresses both the 
power and feebleness of Islam." Gibbon says, '' It 
asserts an eternal truth and an eternal lie." 

I. '' The Eternal Truths — '' There is no god but God." 
Here is the truth of truths. Thomas Carlyle, con- 
templating this article of the Mohammedan faith, was 
moved to say, '' We call Mohammed's creed a kind 
of Christianity." Herein he found the strength of the 

^ Alger. 



ISLAM. 279 

whole system : " Out of all that rubbish of Arab idol- 
atries, argumentative theologies, traditions, rumors and 
hypotheses of Greeks and Jews with their idle wire- 
drawings, this wild man of the desert with his wild 
sincere heart, earnest as death and life, with his great 
flashing natural eyesight, had seen into the kernel of 
the matter. Idolatry is nothing : * These wooden idols 
of yours, ye rub them with oil and wax, and the flies 
stick on them ; these are wood, I tell you ! They can 
do nothing for you. They are an impotent, blasphem- 
ous pretence ; a horror and abomination, if ye knew 
them. God alone is ; God alone has power ; he made 
us, he can kill us and keep us alive ; Allah akbar, God 
is great ! Understand that his will is the best for you ; 
that howsoever sore to flesh and blood, you will find it 
the wisest, best ; you are bound to take it so ; in this 
world and the next you have nothing else that you 
can do.* " 

Is it a Kind of Christianity ? — But, Carlyle to the con- 
trary, Mohammedanism is not '' a kind of Christianity," 
rather it is as far as possible from it. The two cardinal 
doctrines of the Christian religion are the incarnation 
and the atonement. Both of these are distinctly contra- 
dicted in the Koran. In the most precious of its surahs, 
said to be of more value than all the remainder of the 
book, occurs this statement : 

"Say there is one God alone? 
God the eternal. 

He begetteth not, is not begotten, 
And there is none like unto him.'' 

It is obvious from this that the monotheism of Islam 



28o THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

is not Christian monotheism. The prophet has indeed 
no conception of our doctrine of the tripersonal One. 
He looked on the Trinity as tritheism. He seems to 
have beheved that the three persons of the Christian's 
Trinity were God, Jesus and the Virgin Mary.^ He 
therefore pronounced against it : " They misbeheve 
who say, ' Verily, God is the third of this,' for there is 
no God but one ; and if they do not desist from what 
they say, there shall touch those who misbelieve among 
them grievous woe." Again : '' The Christians say, 
* Messiah is the Son of God.' They take their doc- 
tors and monks for lords. God fight them, how they 
lie ! They are bidden to worship but one God ; and 
there is no God but He." And again : " The Messiah, 
Jesus, the son of Mary, is but the apostle of God, and 
the word of God which he cast into Mary and a Spirit 
from God. Believe, then, in God and his apostles, and 
say not ' Three.' Have done ! it were better for you. 
God is only one." In Surah xix., relating to the birth 
of Jesus, it is said that when Mary's kindred charged 
her with incontinence the child upon her arm defended 
her saying, " Verily, I am the servant of God. H^ hath 
given me the book of the gospel and hath appointed 
me a prophet. And he hath made me blessed and 
dutiful toward my mother. This is Jesus, the son of 
Mary, the word of truth concerning whom they doubt. 
It is not meet for God that he should have any son. 
God forbid !" 

1 Dr. Henry H. Jessup : " There is reason to suppose that Moham- 
med inferred from the Mariolatry prevalent in his time that the Trinity- 
consisted of the Father, the Son and the Virgin Mary.*' 



! 



ISLAM. 281 

In like manner — as we shall see more particularly 
farther on — the doctrine of the atonement as held by 
Christians is denied by Mohammed in most explicit 
terms. We affirm, therefore, that Mohammedanism as 
a system of belief has nothing whatever in common 
with the distinctive creed of the Christian religion. 
The claim of fellowship which is sometimes made 
seems, therefore, a trifle gratuitous on the part of per- 
sons whom the Mohammedans themselves are wont to 
stigmatize as ** infidels " and *' Christian dogs." 

Opposed to Idolatry. — The monotheism of Islam is 
opposed to every form of idolatry. It will be remem- 
bered that the first act of the prophet on entering 
Mecca in triumph was to overthrow the images in the 
Kaaba.^ As long as he lived the driver of Khadijah's 
caravans was beating down as with his camels' hoofs 
the " abominations " of the sons of Ishmael. '' The 
belief," says Maurice, " that nothing in the earth, noth- 
ing in the heavens, not even light, is a symbol of God 
— that not even man himself can be looked upon in 
any other character than as a minister of the one Su- 
preme Being, — evidently inspires every enterprise. In 

^ " One day, whilst sitting by the Kaaba, he uttered in the hearing 
of his opponents words of compromise regarding their gods Al-Lat and 
Al-Ozza and Manah, that * their intercession might be hoped for with 
God.' These words were listened to with surprise by the idolaters who 
were present, and a reconciliation seemed possible ; but within a few 
days the concession he had made was by the prophet attributed to a 
suggestion of the Evil One, was uncompromisingly withdrawn and the 
idol-worship condemned and reprobated, thus : ' What think ye of Al- 
Lat and Al-Ozza and Manah, that other third goddess ? They are no 
other than empty names, which ye and your fathers have named god- 
desses ' (Surah liii.)." — Islafn, p. 80. 



282 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the strength of it they destroy temples, idols and priests, 
plunder cities, make slaves of their inhabitants, turn 
their children into soldiers of the Crescent." ^ The God 
of Islam is enthroned in the supreme place, above all 
principalities and powers of earth and heaven — an 
awful Presence abiding solitary and alone. Only God 
is great ! 

" A King, who by the public mouth was named the Great, 
Was on his station's frailty wont to meditate. 

"Against all arrogance as a protecting gate 
This phrase he oft repeated ; Only God is great. 

" Those words he bade them on the palace-wall ingrain, 
Whose fragrant columns, crumbling, to this day remain. 

" City and realm are sunk, but travelers relate 
You still may read that motto : Only God is great."*^ 

The Absolute Will. — The God of Islam is the apothe- 
osis of pure Will. There is no love or true mercy or 
sympathy in him. The Mohammedan system is called 
by Palgrave *^ a pantheism of force." The Koran gives 
ninety-nine names of God, but '' Father " is not among 
them. The very closest relation of the believer with 
God is expressed in the word islam^ or submission to 
his will. ** Verily," said the prophet, '* there is none 

^ " It was a mercy of God," continues the same writer, *' that such a 
witness, however bare of other supporting principles, however sur- 
rounded by confusions, should have been borne to his name, when his 
creatures were ready, practically, to forget it. The first Mohammedan 
conquest, the continued dominion, prove the assertion * God is' to be 
no dry proposition, but one which is capable of exercising a mastery 
over the rudest tribes, of giving them an order, of making them vic- 
torious over all the civilization and all the religion which has not this 
principle for its basis.'' 



i 



ISLAM. 283 

in heaven or on earth but shall approach the God of 
mercy as a slave." How far, how infinitely far, re- 
moved is this from the filial intimacy of those who by 
the spirit of adoption are admitted into the glorious 
liberty of the children of God ! The God of the Mos- 
lems, as Palgrave observes,^ ** is one in the totality of 
omnipotent and omnipresent action which acknowledges 
no rule, standard or limits, save one sole and absolute 
will. He himself, sterile in his inaccessible height, 
neither loving nor enjoying aught save his own and 
self-measured decree, without son, companion or coun- 
cilor, is no less barren for himself than for his crea- 
tures ; and his own barrenness and lone egoism in him- 
self is the cause and rule of his indifferent and unre- 
garding despotism around." 

" One God the Arabian prophet preached to man ; 
One God the Crescent still 
Adores through many a realm of mighty span — 
A God of power and will — 

" A God that, shrouded in his lonely light, 
Rests utterly apart 
From all the vast creations of his might, 
From nature, man and art; 

" A power that at his pleasure doth create, 
To save or to destroy; 
And to eternal pain predestinate, 
As to eternal joy." ^ 

Central Thought: Kismet, — The Moslem's belief in 

1 Quoted by Dr. Lees, in The Faiths of the World. 

2 " The Mohammedans accept the doctrine of God's absolute pre- 
destinating decree, both for good and evil, for man's obedience and 
disobedience, for his future happiness and misery, and also that these 



284 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

Fate grows out of his conception of God. All things 
are controlled by an infinite Will. There is no chang- 
ing the supreme purpose concerning us. What is to 
be must be. Prosperity and adversity alike are met 
with a stolid front : '' Kismet — it is the divine will." 
All things that come to pass were written on stone tab- 
lets from the beginning. The day of a man's death is 
inscribed on his forehead, and he can do nothing to 
avert or postpone it. Hence the desperate valor of 
Moslems on the battle-field. 

** Fate is a hand. It lays two fingers on the eyes, 
Two on the ears, one on the mouth, and silent cries, 
* Be ever still !' Then down in endless sleep man lies.'* 

This Mohammedan doctrine of predestination makes 
God an unreasoning and hateful autocrat and man an 
impotent creature in his terrible grip. *' When God 
resolved to create the human race he took into his 
hands a mass of earth, the same whence all mankind 
were to be formed, and in which they after a manner 
pre-existed ; and, having then divided the clod into 
two equal portions, he threw the one half into hell, 
saying, ' These to eternal fire, and I care not !' and 
projected the other half into heaven, adding, 'And 
these to Paradise, and I care not!' " On this Palgrave 

eternal and immutable decrees cannot by any wisdom or foresight be 
avoided. Carried to its extreme, this doctrine saps the foundation of 
free -will, renders men blind to the teaching of the past, apathetic in the 
present and indifferent to the future. It makes prayer an empty form, 
destroying as it does all dependence upon an overruling Providence, 
and, pitiless as the grave, takes away alike the power of avoiding sin 
and of escaping its punishment — making even the power and mercy of 
the Almighty subject to the fiat of an inexorable Fate." — Islam ^ p. 97. 



I! 



ISLAM. 285 

says : *' In a word, he burns one individual through all 
eternity amid red-hot chains and seas of molten fire, 
and seats another in the plenary enjoyment of an ever- 
lasting brothel, between forty celestial concubines, just 
and equally for his own good pleasure and because he 
wills it/' This may be called, literally, predestination 
with a vengeance. 

2. " The Great Lie!' — The second article of the Is- 
lamic creed is, " Mohammed is God's prophet." This 
is the sublime falsehood for which holy wars without 
number have been waged— a falsehood for which there 
is no ground nor extenuation whatever in the life and 
character of Mohammed — a falsehood which, like a 
granite pillar,^ has upheld Islam for thirteen centuries, 
only to crumble at length under the silent influence of 
clearer light, leaving that imposing fabric to suffer the 
common fate of all spurious systems of religion. 

Sin. — In addition to the two fundamental doctrines 
of the Kalima already mentioned, there are other im- 
portant tenets. The Moslems believe in sin ; not, how- 
ever, in that kind of sin which is described as '' any 
want of conformity unto or transgression of the law 
of God.'' The conviction of sin felt by a Moham- 

^ " It is, without doubt, one of the most noticeable circumstances in 
the history of his religion that his own person should have been so 
much bound up with it; that every caliph or sultan who has reigned 
over any tribe of his followers should have reigned in his name ; that 
the recollection of a man should have so much more power than even 
the book which Mussulmans regard with such profound reverence; that 
the honor of a human chieftain should so markedly distinguish a re- 
ligion which looks upon man as separated by an immeasurable distance 
from the object of his worship." — F. D. Maurice, in Religions of the 
World, p. 20. 



286 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

medan is due to a consciousness of having come short 
of his complement of meritorious observances. He has 
not cried Allah il Allah an hundred times since day- 
break, as he should have done, or he has failed to make 
the requisite number of prostrations, or he has not 
cursed the infidel with sufficient gusto. 

''What shall I Do to be Saved f — The only possi- 
bility of deliverance from the dire consequences of 
such shortcoming is in doing better for the future.^ 
The Moslem is for ever "turning over a new leaf" 
There is no room in his religion for any such thing as 
forgiveness, though the prophet in his last hours cried 
out for it : " Allah ! grant me pardon — pardon and an 
eternity in Paradise !" The Christian doctrine of re- 
demption is wholly repudiated, and there is no other 

^ " The joys of Paradise are to be obtained only by the rigid perform- 
ance of all the observances of the faith ; and the value of the believer's 
works are to be weighed by a hard taskmaster rather than a loving 
Father, the dread of whose displeasure, more than the smile of whose 
favor, is to be the motive or principle of action." — Islam, p. 191. 

" The Koran repudiates the idea of any vicarious sacrifice for sin, 
teaches expressly that each soul must account for itself to God, and, 
denying the truth of Christian redemption, lays upon each individual 
the task of atoning for his own sin, of securing pardon and of render- 
ing himself meet for admission to Paradise. Self-righteousness, the 
merit of good works and of a rigid attention to the prescribed formu- 
laries and ceremonies of their faith, with God's mercy to supply any 
deficiency, — these constitute the scheme of salvation prescribed in 
Islam." — Ibid., p. 232. 

" In proposing self-righteousness as the means of salvation Islam is 
admirably adapted to flatter the pride of man ; and in this particular 
especially is it antagonistic to Christianity, which, excluding the merit 
of man's works, calls for inward holiness, not outside form, and sum- 
mons the humble, contrite sinner in deep abasement to the foot of the cross 
as his only hope of pardon, his only source of peace." — Ibid.^ p. 237. 



I 



ISLAM. 287 

rational ground of forgiveness. The Moslem is left, 
of a truth, to work out his own salvation with a great 
fear and trembling, because he works without God. 
His own hand or none must save his guilty soul from 
the flaming pit. 

Death, — At death soul and body are buried together. 
A few hours later the grave is visited by two angels, 
who cause the deceased to sit up and answer for him- 
self If he can sincerely avow belief in the Kalima, 
he is allowed to rest in peace ; otherwise, he is beaten 
and turned over to the mercy of dragons until the last 
day. 

Resurrection. — The resurrection is sure. It will occur 
at the sounding of the trumpet of the angel Israfil. 
Out of their graves everywhere the dead, great and 
small, shall then come to judgment.^ 

^ " There is, however, much diversity of opinion as to the precise dis- 
posal of the soul before the judgment-day : some think that it hovers 
near the grave ; some, that it sinks into the well Zem-Zem ; some, that it 
retires into the trumpet of the Angel of the Resurrection; the difficuhy 
apparently being that any final disposal before the day of judgment 
would be anticipatory of that great event, if, indeed, it would not ren- 
der it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be merely 
spiritual, others corporeal, the latter asserting that the os coccygis, or 
last bone of the spinal column, will serve, as it were, as a germ, and 
that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will sprout from it. 
Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will be the rising 
of the sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three blasts of a trum- 
pet: the first, known as the blast of consternation, will shake the earth 
to its centre and extinguish the sun and stars; the second, the blast 
of extermination, will annihilate all material things except Paradise, 
hell and the throne of God ; forty years subsequently the angel Israfil 
will sound the blast of resurrection. From his trumpet there will be 
blown forth the countless myriads of souls who have taken refuge 



288 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

yiidginent. — One of the most striking surahs of the 
Koran, called "The Folding Up," thus pictures the 
events of the dreadful last day: 

therein or lain concealed. The day of judgment has now come. The 
Koran contradicts itself as to the length of this day, in one place mak- 
ing it a thousand, in another fifty thousand, years. Most Mohammedans 
incline to adopt the longer period, since angels, genii, men and animals 
have to be tried. As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but 
naked — white-winged camels with saddles of gold awaiting the saved. 
When the partition is made the wicked will be oppressed with an in- 
tolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called into exist- 
ence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a sweat to issue 
from them, and this, according to their demerits, will immerse them 
from the ankles to the mouth ; but the righteous will be screened by the 
shadow of the throne of God. The Judge will be seated in the clouds, 
the books open before him, and everything in its turn will be called on to 
account for its deeds. For greater despatch, the angel Gabriel will hold 
forth his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over 
hell. In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is de- 
livered, the assembly in a long file will pass over the bridge Al-Sirat. It 
is as sharp as the edge of a sword and laid over the mouth of hell. 
Mohammed and his followers will successfully pass the perilous ordeal, 
but the sinners, giddy with terror, will drop into the place of tonnent. 
The blessed will receive their first taste of happiness at a pond which 
is supplied by silver pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Para- 
dise is of musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and 
emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls the houris, or girls of Paradise, 
will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys. Each saint will 
have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two girls. To these some 
of the more merciful Mussulmans add the wives they have had upon 
earth, but the grimly orthodox assert that hell is already nearly filled 
with women. How can it be otherwise, since they are not permitted to 
pray in a mosque upon earth? I have not space to describe the silk 
brocades, the green clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual 
music and songs. From the glorified body all impurities will escape, 
not as they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor 
and musk." — Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. i. 
P- 345- 



ISLAM. 289 

" When the sun shall be folded up, 
And the stars shall fall ; 
When the mountains shall be moved, 
And the she-camels shall be left uncared for, 
And the wild beasts shall be huddled together ; 
When the seas shall boil ; 

When the souls and bodies of the dead shall be reunited, 
And the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled ; 
When the heavens shall be stripped away like a skin. 
And hell shall be made to blaze. 
And Paradise shall be brought near ; — 
Then every soul shall know what it has done." 

On that day all souls will be required to pass over the 
bridge Sirat, which is sharper than a sword's edge and 
finer than a hair. " In passing over it the feet of the 
infidel will slip and he will fall into hell-fire, where his 
feet will be shod with shoes of fire, the fever of which 
will make his skull boil like a cauldron ; but the feet 
of the Moslem will be firm and will carry him safely 
to Paradise, where palaces of marble full of delights, 
amid groves and gardens, await his coming." 

Heaven, — The heaven of Islam is a place of eight 
divisions, as follows: (i) The Garden of Eternity, (2) 
The Abode of Peace, (3) The Abode of Rest, (4) The 
Garden of Eden, (5) The Garden of Refuge, (6) The 
Garden of Delight, (7) The Garden of the Most High, 
(8) The Garden of Paradise. All these are places of 
innumerable sensual joys — shadowy groves, fountains, 
fruits " hanging low so as to be easily gathered," and 
wives ad libitum. 

Hell. — The Mohammedan hell has seven apartments, 
to wit : (i) Gehenum, for Moslems on their way heaven- 
ward ; (2) Laswa, full of furious flames, for Christians ; 

19 



290 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

(3) Hutama, a similar place for Jews ; (4) Sahir, a place 
of torment for Sabians ; (5) Sagar, for Magians, (6) 
Gahim, a red-hot furnace for idolaters ; and (7) Hawia, 
a bottomless pit for hypocrites. All these are cham- 
bers of inexpressible pain. " Verily," says the Koran, 
*' those who misbelieve in our signs we will broil with 
fire ; whenever their skins are well done, then we will 
change them for other skins, that they may taste the 
torment. Verily, God is glorious and wise." 

El-Aaraf. — Between heaven and hell there is an in- 
termediate place, called El-Aaraf, which is simply a 
partition-wall whereon sit — so that they may look both 
ways — the souls of mortals who, like Rob Roy, are 
*' o'er good for banning and o'er bad for blessing." 

Spirits, — The upper and nether regions are peopled 
with angels. The four chiefest of the blessed ones are 
Gabriel, the messenger of revelation ; Michael, the 
friend of the Jews ; Azrael, the angel of death ; and 
Israfeel, the angel of resurrection. The archangel of 
the region of darkness is Eblis, whose business is '' to 
tempt man to disobedience." Aside from these, the 
earth is peopled with genii, who play all manner of 
pranks among the living and haunt the cities of the 
dead. 

III. Ethics. — As the future happiness of the Moslem 
depends wholly on the performance of certain duties, 
it is important to know what those duties are. To 
begin with : they have little or no connection with the 
great principles which are expressed in the moral law. 
A disciple of Mohammed may be a thief, a liar, a sen- 
sualist and a murderer, and still be a very good Mo- 



i 



ISLAM. 291 

hammedan. The sum-total of duty is a strict observance 
of the ritual. Dr. Henry H. Jessup says: *'One who 
fulfills the ritual in whole or in part is a good Moslem, 
though not to be believed under oath. Dr. Eli Smith 
of Beirut was said by an Arab to be a very holy man, 
' But, poor man ! he had no religion ;' that is, no ob- 
servance of an outward ritual. The good works of 
Islam are of the lips, the hand and outward bodily act, 
having no connection with holiness of life. An Arab 
highway-robber and murderer was once brought for 
trial before a Mohammedan pasha, when the pasha 
stepped down and kissed his hand, as the culprit was 
a dervish or holy man who had been on several pil- 
grimages to Mecca and had been known to repeat the 
name Allah more times than any other man." 

The Five Pillars, — The Five Pillars of Practice, 
called Deen, are as follows : (i) Repeating the creed, 
or Kalima. (2) Observing the five stated periods of 
prayer — viz. before sunrise, just after mid-day, before 
sunset, after sunset and at nightfall. At these periods 
the call is heard from all the minarets : "'Allah il Allah I 
God is great ! I bear witness that there is no god but 
God ! I bear witness that Mohammed is the prophet of 
God! God is great ! There is no other god but GodT^ 

1 " THE CALL TO EVENING PRAYER. 

"One silver crescent in the twilight sky is hanging, 
Another tijDS the solemn dome of yonder mosque ; 
And now the muezzin's call is heard, sonorous clanging, 

Through thronged bazaar, concealed hareem and cool kiosk : 
* In the Prophet's name, God is God, and there is no other.' 
On roofs, in streets, alone or close beside his brother. 



292 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

On hearing that cry the people, wherever they may 
be, perform their oblations with water or sand, pros- 
trate themselves and silently go through their devo- 
tional ritual. Prayer is called '^ the key of Paradise." 
It consists chiefly in repeating the hundred names and 
other magical portions of scripture. The most meri- 
torious act of devotion is the repetition of Al-Fatiha, 
the opening surah of the Koran. (3) Keeping the 
thirty da}^s' fast of Ramadan. During this holy month 
no Moslem is allowed to eat, drink, or smoke from 
dawn, when there is light enough to distinguish be- 
tween a black and a white thread, until sunset. During 
the nights, however, he may do pretty much as he 
pleases. The fast terminates with the festival of Eed- 
al-Fitr, or breakfast, which is celebrated with great re- 
joicing. (4) Performing the legal alms. The common 
saying is, '' Prayer carries us halfway to God, fasting 
brings us to his door, but alms admit us." The system 
of almsgiving, aside from relieving the necessities of 
the poor,^ furnishes the material strength of the Mos- 

Each Moslem kneels, his forehead turned toward Mecca's shrine, 
And all the world forgotten in one thought divine." 

Alger's Oriental Poetry, p. 137. 

'^ A Sermon on Charity, said to have been preached by Mohammed: 
*' \Mien God made the earth it shook to and fro till he put mountains 
on it to keep it firm. Then the angels asked, * O God, is there anything 
in thy creation stronger than these mountains ?' And God replied, 
* Iron is stronger than the mountains, for it breaks them.' — 'And is 
there anything in thy creation stronger than iron?' — 'Yes, fire is 
stronger than iron, for it melts it.' — ' Is there anything stronger than 
fire?' — 'Yes, water, for it quenches fire.' — 'Is there anything stronger 
than water?' — 'Yes, wind, for it puts water in motion.' — 'O our Sus- 
tainer, is there anything in thy creation stronger than wind ?' — * Yes, a 



ISLAM. 293 

lem government. (5) The pilgrimage to Mecca.^ This 
is required of all believers : if they would make sure 

good man giving alms : if he give it with his right hand and conceal it 
from his left, he overcomes all things. Every good act is charity : your 
smiling in yom* brother's face, your putting a wanderer in the right 
road, your giving water to the thirsty, is charity ; exhortation to another 
to do right is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he 
has done in this world to his fellow -men. When he dies people will 
ask, What property has he left behind him ? But the angels will ask, 
What good deeds has he sent before him.' '^ 

^ The following vivid description of the departure for Mecca is by 
Rev. T. p. Hughes in The Missionary Gleaner : " The mahmal is a 
velvet canopy which the pilgrims convey to and from Mecca. It is a 
square frame of wood with a pyramidal top, with a rich covering of em- 
broidered velvet, surmounted with silver balls and crescents. As far as 
I could ascertain, the canopy was empty, it being merely carried with 
the pilgrims as an emblem of royalty. The origin of the ceremony is 
said by some to be as follows : 

" * Shegur-ud-durr, a beautiful Turkish female slave, who became the 
wife of Sultan Salah, on the death of his son caused herself to be pro- 
claimed queen of Egypt, and performed the pilgrimage in a magnificent 
hodaq, or covered litter, borne on a camel. For several successive years 
the empty hodaq was sent with the caravan of pilgrims for the sake of 
state. Hence, succeeding princes of Egypt sent with each year's pil- 
grimage a kind of hodaq (which received the name of fjiahmal) as an 
emblem of royalty, and the kings of other countries followed their 
example.' 

" At seven o'clock in the mornmg all the leading officers of state 
assembled in a portico erected below the citadel to receive the two 
Egyptian princes, a vacant seat being left for the viceroy. The officers 
were all dressed in French uniform with the usual Turkish fez cap — the 
only persons in turbans being two Mohammedan moulvies. The roads 
were lined with troops, and as the royal party arrived the bands struck 
up the Egyptian national air. There were a number of European visit- 
ors, including the American aml)assador from Berlin, one English peer 
and an English member of Parliament. 

'' After the arrival of the princes there was a pause in the ceremonial, 
and the uninitiated in Egyptian etiquette were on the tiptoe of expecta- 
tion. Were they wailing for the khctlivc? After a few minutes a car- 



294 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 

of Paradise, they must, at some time during their lives, 
make the seven circuits of the Kaaba, say their prayers 
within its confines and kiss the black stone. 

Such is the Mohammedan idea of religion. It is 
purely a ceremonial system. It suggests no such thing 
as regeneration or other spiritual change, nor any real 
communion with God. There have, of course, been 
Moslems who have passed beyond and above the 
narrow and sordid limits of Islam — who have seen 
through the fraud and emptiness and have dreamed 
of better things. Witness the refreshing spirituality 
of the following by a Sufi poet, entitled ** The Re- 
ligion of the Heart:" 

riage drove up in regal state, and there stepped forth an old Moham- 
medan priest. It was the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the archbishop and lord 
chancellor of Egypt. Of course royalty must be kept waiting for this 
representative of orthodox Islam. The whole assembly rose and re- 
ceived the venerable old man with becoming respect, and then the sig- 
nal was given for the mahmal procession to move on. 

" Amidst the din of fifes and drums and the wild Egyptian national 
air, the shouts of the dervishes, * Allah ! Allah ! Allah !' and the tink- 
ling of bells, the canopy, which was borne upon the back of a fine tall 
camel, approached the sheikh and the royal princes. The procession 
was headed by a fat, long-haired, brawny fellow (a dervish), almost 
naked, who incessantly rolled his head to and fro, shouting * Allah ! 
Allah ! Allah !' The mahmal was surrounded by a guard of horse- 
men, and the people kept running round it, shouting in the most frantic 
manner. When it came opposite the princes, they, in company with 
the Sheikh-ul-Islam, approached it with the greatest veneration and 
touched it, uttering some pious ejaculation. This was done by all the 
officials : then the procession moved on, and encamped outside the city 
gate until the next day, when the caravan left to perform the haji, or 
pilgrimage to Mecca. The merits of it are so great that every step taken 
in the dh-ection of the Kaaba (the great shrine at Mecca) blots out a 
sin, and he who dies on his way to Mecca is enrolled on the list of 
martyrs r 



ISLAM, 295 

" Beats there a heart within that breast of thine ? 
Then compass reverently its sacred shrine : 
For the true spiritual Kaaba is the heart, 
And no proud pile of perishable art. 
When God ordained the pilgrim rite, that sign 
Was meant to lead thy thought to things divine : 
A thousand times he treads that round in vain 
Who e'en one human heart would idly pain. 
Leave wealth behind ; bring God thy heart — best light 
To guide thy wavering steps through life's dark night. 
God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers. 
And says, * My chosen is he his heart who offers. 
Nor gold nor silver seek I, but above 
All gifts the heart, and buy it with my love ; 
Yea, one sad, contrite heart, which men despise, 
More than my throne and fixed decree I prize.' 
Then think not lowly of thy heart, though lowly, 
For holy is it, and there dwells the Holy. 
God's presence-chamber is the human breast ; 
Ah, happy he whose heart holds such a guest !" ^ 

The fact remains, however, that with the vast ma- 
jority this system is a dry and empty shell. To the 
question, '' What shall I do to be saved?" the invaria- 

^ From Alger's Oriental Poetry. In the following may be found 
a similar reference to the spirituality of true worship : 

"THE UNWALLED HOUSE OF GOD. 

" The holy Nanac on the ground, one day 

Reclining, with his feet toward Mecca lay. 

A passing Moslem priest, offended, saw, 

And, flaming for the honor of his law, 

Exclaimed, * Base infidel, thy prayers repeat ! 

Toward Allah's house how dar'st tbou turn thy feet ?' 

Before the Moslem's shallow accents died 

The pious but indignant Nanac cried, 
* And turn them, if thou canst, toward any spot 

Wherein the awful Holisc of God is not.' " 



296 THE J^ELIGIOiYS OF THE WORLD. 

ble answer is, Do your duty; that is, Stand by the 
Five Pillars and submit to the divine will. 

IV. ynrisprudcncc. — In this religion we find a com- 
bination of the secular and spiritual power. Dr. Jessup 
says : '' It is a politico-religious system. The sultan 
is the caliph or successor of Mohammed. He is the 
prophet, priest and king of the Mohammedan world. 
The laws of the empire are based on the Koran, the 
decisions of the imams and Mohammedan tradition. 
In Turkey the imperial army is a religious army, the 
great national festivals are religious festivals, testimony 
is a religious act, and Mohammedanism is thus in- 
trenched in the very political and civil organization 
of the empire." Back of this close wedlock of Church 
and State we find in the Koran an elaborate legal 
code. 

War agauist the Infidel. — The first civil injunction 
of the Koran is aimed at the extermination of the in- 
fidel : '' When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off 
their heads !" This is in marked contrast w^ith the 
spirit of the gospel of Christ, who said, " Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully 
use you and persecute you." ^ 

Slavery. — By the Koran law slavery also is made to 
rest on divine authority. In countries where Islam 

^ " Light and darkness are not more opposed than the loving dictates 
of the gospel and the vengeful spirit of the Koran, in which hatred and 
oppression take the place of love and forgiveness of injuries, and the 
denunciations of the prophet contrast with the voice of the Good Shep- 
herd, which speaks of peace and good-will to a^l mankind.*' — IslatHf 
p. 238. 



ISLAM. 297 

prevails it is absolutely impossible that there should 
be freedom or equality among men.^ 

Polygamy, — Polygamy also is upheld and advocated. 
The prophet himself practiced it. Frederick D. Maurice 
says : " Polygamy is no accident of Mohammedanism : 
a careful consideration of the system will show that it 
must fall to pieces the moment any reformer shall un- 
dertake to remove this characteristic of it." Incon- 
sequence of the debasement of the marriage relation 
the condition of woman among the Moslems is wholly 
lamentable. She is regarded as a lower order of being, 
unreasoning and incapable of self-control, never the 
helpmate, but the slave, of man.^ 

^ **The religion of Islam is an outward form, a hard shell of au- 
thority, hollow at heart. It constantly tends to the two antagonistic 
but related vices of luxury and cruelty. Under the profession of Islam 
polytheism and idolatry have always prevailed in Arabia. In Turkistan, 
where slavery is an extremely cruel system, they make slaves of Mos- 
lems in defiance of the Koran. One chief being appealed to by Vam- 
bery (who traveled as a dervish), replied, * We buy and sell the Koran 
itself, which is the holiest thing of all. Why not buy and sell Mussul- 
mans, who are less holy ?' ■' — Clarke's Ten Great Religions, p. 478. 

2 **It may be well to consider what the teaching of the Koran is on 
the subject. In the fourth Surah, entitled * Women,' among various di- 
rections regarding their years of orphanage, inheritances, chastity and 
the forbidden degrees, permission is given to the faithful * to take two 
or three or four, and not more,' women as wives, and in addition to 
these, as concubines, the slave-girls * which their right hands possess ' 
(Surah Ixx.), that is, purchased or made captive in war. In reality, 
the number of wives is practically unlimited, as the Koran allows an 
almost unchecked power of divorce and exchange. The action of the 
husband, who is expressly stated to be superior to the wife, is nearly 
uncontrolled. He may repudiate his wives without any assigned reason 
and without warning— may, if apprehensive of disobedience, rebuke, 
imprison and strike them (Surah iv.) ; and against this the dishonored 
spouse has almost no means of redress. E> posed to the tyranny of her 



298 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

As somewhat of good is to be found in every relig- 
ious system, we here discover not a few healthful pre- 

husband and treated as a kind of plaything — a being formed for lust 
and labor, to be capriciously flung aside on the least provocation or in 
a moment of anger or for mere dislike — she is worse than a slave." — 
Islam, p. 150. 

In this connection it will be interesting to note the efficacy of recent 
missionary work in the zenanas. The following (from the Presbyterian 
Foreign Missionary) is a translation of a Mohammedan proclamation 
issued in Lahore in 1866: 

"MUSSULMANS ON ZENANA MISSIONS. 

** We have received a translation of a proclamation that has been 
issued to the Mussulman population of Lahore. We believe that it is 
not confined to Lahore, but has also made a stir in Amritsar and Sialkot. 
It bears remarkable testimony to the efficacy of the work done in zenana 
schools. It runs as follows : 

"<THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ISLAM. 
" ' Education of Women. 
*** In the name of God the merciful and gracious.' 
** * O believers, save yourselves and your families from the fires of hell.* 
" * O readers, a thing is taking place which deserves your attention, 
and which you will not find it difficult to check. Females need such 
education as is necessary to save them from the fires of hell. The Quran 
and the traditions teach this necessity, and two great philosophers say, 
" Home is the best school;" but to make it so women must be taught. 
We are doing nothing, but are trying to destroy our children. Although 
we are able to teach our own girls, yet wherever you go you find zenana 
mission-schools filled with our daughters. There is no alley or house 
where the effect of these schools is not felt. There are few of our 
women who did not, in their childhood, learn and sing in the presence 
of their teachers such hymns as *' He to Isa, Isa bol '* (** Take the name 
of Jesus"), and few of our girls who have not read the Gospels. They 
know Christianity and the objections to Islam, and whose faith has not 
been shaken ? The freedom which Christian women possess \i influ- 
encing all our women. They, being ignorant of the excellencies of 
their own religion, and bemg taught that those things in Islam which 
are really good are not really good, will never esteem their own religion. 



4 



ISLAM. 299 

cepts touching the well-being of men in their civil and 
social relations/ A strict prohibition is placed upon 

" * timar, one of Mohammed's four bosom friends, was fond of read- 
ing the books of Moses and the Gospels, but Mohammed forbade him, 
saying, " These may lead you in the wrong way." How much more 
danger, then, is there in our little daughters reading them! 

** * There are multitudes of missionaries in the land whose object is to 
destroy your religion. They see that the condition of a country de- 
pends on the condition of the women, and therefore they send women 
to teach ours to work and read, and at the same time to sow the seeds 
of hatred to Islam. 

" * Christian women teach Mohammedan women that they should have 
the liberty which they possess, and the Mohammedan teachers in these 
schools, who are only nominal Mohammedans, by pretending to teach 
the Quran draw our daughters into these schools, and then teach them 
the gospel and hymns. For a little while they may teach the Quran, 
but when the missionary lady comes in they hide it under a mat or throw 
it into some unclean place, into which if a man had thrown it he might 
have been sent to prison. And as long as the lady is present they teach 
Christianity and expose Mohammedism. Can we be pleased with such 
instruction as this ? O believers, why not teach your children Chris- 
tianity instead of your own religion? 

" * How far has this religion influenced our women ? So far has the 
love of liberty extended among our daughters and daughters-in-law that 
they get into carriages with these teachers, go to the Shalamar garden, 
bathe in the tank, sit at table and eat, and then make a quantity of tea 
disappear.' " 

^ " In the midst of all these revelations there occur here and there 
excellent moral sentiments to which no exception can be taken. Thus 
the duly of helping the poor, of relieving the needy traveler and of 
doing justice to the orphan is insisted on. The love and honor due to 
parents from their children, the performance of covenants and the use 
of just weights form part of the believer's duty. Liberality is com- 
mended, profuseness condemned. The prophet points out how, at the 
end of the world, our words, our thoughts — nay, the very use of our 
eyesight — will be brought into account; and he states how desirable it 
is for the true believer to love God, to pray to him and to walk humbly 
in his sight (Surah xvii.). On the occurrence of such sentiments in the 
Koran it maybe well to remember that no civilized heathen nation ever 



300 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the exaction of usury, another on infanticide, another 
on gambling and another on the use of intoxicating 
drink. Thus, while the Mohammedans are in most 
points an ungodly people, they are, as a rule, free from 
these particular sins. 

V. Fruits of the System. — It need scarcely be said 
that a system which so broadly divorces morality and 
religion can have but one result — namely, utter moral 
and spiritual demoralization. The author of Gesta 
Christi says : '* In fact, the many false and evil ele- 
ments of Mohammedanism have made it one of the 
curses of mankind. It has spread abroad the spirit 
of cruelty and lust, and under it are found the unnat- 
ural vices. It could not rise above its source. It 
illustrated or exaggerated everywhere the vices of 
its leader. It left behind it, whether in Spain, Sicily, 
Egypt or Bagdad, anarchy, corruption and horrible 
social evils." ^ 

existed in which just, beautiful and sublime sentiments were not known 
and recorded in its sacred books." — Islam, p. 138. 

^ VAfrique has answered the apologists of Islam in a strain which 
we have thought quite worthy of a translation. It says : " It cannot 
be denied that the Mohammedan religion has had the effect of improv- 
ing in some measure the usages and customs of its negro proselytes. 
Thus, the prohibition of strong drink has been salutary ; they have be- 
come neater, more respectable and more industrious. It could not be 
otherwise, for contact with a more civilized people — and such we con- 
sider the Arabs to be — would naturally produce these effects. The 
Arabs have also communicated a desire for trade to the inhabitants of 
Soudan, developing commercial activity, which the people who are still 
heathen do not possess. On the other hand, has the Mohammedan re- 
ligion abolished the many practices so offensive and revolting to mo- 
rality? Has it cured that sanguinary plague of Africa, the slave-trade ? 
Has it caused a cessation of the continual wars between state and 



ISLAM. 301 

Sensuality. — The universal vice of the Moslems is 
sensuality. In this they are encouraged by their book, 
which distinctly says, " Your wife is your field," and 
by the example of their prophet, who took to himself 
eleven wives and numberless concubines.^ The institu- 

state? Does it interdict polygamy? Does it permit the entrance of 
foreigners and of the torch of Christianity ? We are forced to answer 
all these questions in the negative. Can a good influence be exercised 
by a people who consider the negro race simply as so much prey and a 
source of profit — a people who practice slavery openly, and whose 
national traits are those of the most eager and the most fierce hunters 
of men? All travelers agree in asserting the contrary." 

The following words of King Mtesa, quoted by H. M. Stanley, show 
also the estimate made of the Mohammedan character by a discerning 
native : ** The Arabs come here for ivory and slaves, and we have seen 
that they do not always speak the truth, and that they buy men of their 
own color and treat them badly, putting them in chains and beating 
them. The white men, when offered slaves, refuse them, saying, * Shall 
we make our brothers slaves ? No, we are all sons of God.' I have 
not heard a white man talk a lie yet. Speke came here, behaved well 
and went his way home with his brother Grant. They bought no slaves, 
and the time they were in Uganda they were vei*y good. Stanley came 
here and would take no slaves. And when I think that the Arabs and 
the white men do as they are taught, I say that the white men are superior 
to the Arabs, and I think, therefore, that their book must be a better book 
than Mohammed's." — -Presbyterian Foreign Missionary, June, 1880. 

^ " On a certain day, Mohammed, entering unexpectedly the house 
of Zeid, had a momentary glimpse of the charms of his beautiful wife 
and uttered a cry of passionate admiration. The circumstance was re- 
ported, and the disciple by an immediate divorce enabled the prophet to 
add a new bride to his harem. By these marriages — for he had then 
six living wives — the legal number allowed to the faithful had been 
overstepped, and, moreover, his alliance with the wife of his adopted 
son was considered highly improper, if not incestuous. But Mohammed 
had an easy and effectual method of silencing present scandal and avoid- 
ing further complication by an additional surah to the Koran ; thus : 
* O Prophet, we have allowed thee wives, and also the slaves which thy 
right hand possesseth, and any other believing woman if she give her- 



302 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

tion of home, as it is established and fostered under 
the benign influences of the gospel of Christ, yielding 
such blessing and peace, is unknown in the Moham- 
medan world. The harem yields the highest type of 
earthly happiness, as understood by Mohammedans, 
and one of the most splendid surahs of the Koran 
contains a promise of seventy-two black-eyed houris 
to the meanest of the prophet's followers on reaching 
the other world. 

Cruelly, — It is usually the case that sensuality goes 
hand in hand with cruelty. They are twin vices. The 
Mohammedans are the most cold-blooded and implac- 
able people on earth. The hand of Islam, the Ishmaelitic 
faith, is against every man. It is related that after the 
battle of Badr one of the prisoners who were brought 
before the prophet cried out, '* There is death in thy 
glance !" Another of them, on being ordered for exe- 
cution, asked in anguish,** Who will take care of my little 
girl ?" The prophet answered " Hell-fire," and com- 
manded him to be immediately slain. In this religion 
war is a divine ordinance, a sacrament. It is written 
in the Koran, " O Prophet, stir up the faithful to war ! 
As to those who fight in defence of the true religion, 
God will not suffer their works to perish, but will lead 
them into Paradise." The pathway of Islam all along 
the centuries has been red with blood. In the great 
Mohammedan university in Cairo,^ where ten thousand 

self and the prophet desireth to take her to wife. This is a peculiar priv- 
ilege granted thee above the rest of the believers' (Surah xxxiii.).'' — 
Islam y p. i6i. 

* For a most interesting sketch of this great university see the Pres- 
byterian Foreign Missionary for January, 1878. 



ISLAM, 303 

students are assembled to study the Koran and pre- 
pare themselves to propagate the true religion, a prayer 
is offered every evening which is thus translated by Dr. 
Jessup : " I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the ac- 
cursed ! In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the 
Merciful ! O Lord of all creatures ! O Allah ! destroy 
the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies 
of the religion ! O Allah ! make their children orphans 
and defile their abodes! Cause their feet to slip ; give 
them and their families, their households and their 
women, their children and their relations by marriage, 
their brothers and their friends, their possessions and 
their race, their wealth and their lands, as booty to the 
Moslems, O Lord of all creatures !" 

It is obvious that a religion of this character cannot 
withstand the benignant influences of advancing civili- 
zation. It belongs to dark ages and benighted lands. 
Its methods are distinctly barbaric. Its Yemen blade 
will prove no better than a willow withe against the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,^ and 

^ " Strong only as a military theocracy, Islam as a creed was a mix- 
ture of fatal apathy with sensual hopes, and did but repeat the same 
mechanical formula with lips of death. Checked in Europe by a long 
line of Christian heroes from Charles Martel to John Hunniades, and 
from Hunniades to Sobieski, its aggressive power was broken. It now 
acts only as a gradual decay in every nation over which it dominates. 
The traveler in Palestine may be shocked to see even the fair hill of 
Nazareth surmounted by the white-domed wely of an obscure Moham- 
medan saint; but he will be reassured as he notices that in every town 
and village where Christians are there are activity and vigor, while all 
the places which are purely Islamite look as if they had been smitten 
as with the palsy by some withering and irreparable curse." — Farrar's 
Witness of History to Christy p. 114. 



304 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

which no power of earth can resist or withstand. Here 
is the contrast : 

" Mohammed's truth lay in a holy book; 
Christ's in a sacred life. 

" So while the world rolls on from change to change, 
And realms of thought expand, 
The letter stands without expanse or range, 
Stiff as a dead man's hand. 

" While as the life-blood fills the growing form, 
The spirit Christ has shed 
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, 
More felt than heard or read." ^ 

The green banner of Islam and its garments rolled 
in blood must presently be folded and laid away, for 
Shiloh comes ; the early twilight of his appearing 
already overspreads the earth. 

^ Lord Houghton, quoted by Dr. Lees. 



X. 
THE TRUE RELIGION. 



20 



Conclusions from the foregoing Survey : 
I. The Religious Instinct is Universal. 
II. There is Truth in all Religions. 

(i) As to God ; (2) As to Morals ; (3) As to the Essen- 
tial Christ. 

III. All the Religions thus far considered are Vitally Defective. 

IV. All of these are Unfit for Universal Diffusion. 

V. Three Necessary Characteristics of the True Religion : 
(i) Pleroma; (2) Faultlessness ; (3) Power to Save. 
VI. Christianit}^ has these Characteristics. 
The Car distal Tmths of Chris tia?iity : 
(i) As to God. 

(2) As to Man. 

(3) As to ]Man's Relations with God. 

" What shall I do to be saved ?" 
Christian Morals. 
Central Truth : Christ : 

(i) As the Manifestation of God; (2) As the Sin-bearer; 
(3) As the Ideal Man. 
Christiajiity the Tme Religion, 



X. THE TRUE RELIGION. 

We want a definition of " Religion." There are 
various theories as to the origin of the word. By 
some it is alleged to be an offshoot from re-legere^ 
"to read over" — /. e, to form an opinion or system 
of opinions from the things which have been written 
touching the great spiritual problems. By others — 
and with equal plausibility — it is thought to have 
come from re-ligare^ " to bind back " — i, e, to restore 
the soul to its original relation of friendship with 
God. The first of these derivations places the em- 
phasis on creed ; the second, on cultus, by which is 
meant the expression of one's creed in worship and 
conduct of life. A combination of both, however it 
may offend the principles of philology, will yield 
the best definition of religion ^ — to wit : a creed phis a 

^ " * Religio est, quae superioris cujusdam, naturae, quam Divinam 
vocant, curam ceremoniamque affert.' — Cicero. 

" Professor Whitney of Yale says : * A religion is the belief in a super- 
natural being or beings whose actions are seen in the works of creation, 
and in such relations on the part of man toward this being or beings as 
prompt the believer to acts of propitiation and worship and to the regu- 
lation of conduct.' 

" Professor Kostlin of Halle says : * Religion means the conscious 
relation between man and God, and the expression of that relation in 
human conduct.^ 

" According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, religion may be defined as an 
* a-priori theory of the universe ;' and there is, the writer tells us, a 

8or 



308 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

cultus. If a system can be found presenting a faultless 
and comprehensive creed and system of belief, with 
appropriate forms of worship and a code of morals, not 
merely as parchment symbols, but inscribed deep on 
the tablets of the inner man and vitally manifested in 
the "walk and conversation," that must h^, par excel- 
lence, the true religion (James i : 22-27). It is our 
belief that these conditions are met fully and only by 
the religion of Jesus Christ. 

Conclusions from our Survey, — From our survey of 
the great systems we arrive at certain conclusions, as 
follows : 

I. The Religious Instinct is Universal} — For 

subsidiary and unessential element in religion — namely, the moral teach- 
ing — * which is in all cases a supplementary growth.' * Leaving out,' 
he says, * the accompanying moral code, which is in all cases a supple- 
mentary growth, religion may be defined as an a-priori theoiy of the 
universe.' But it is clear that this definition would not be universally 
accepted, for we find Mr. Matthew Arnold saying in his Literature and 
Dogma that * Religion, if we follow the intent of human thought and 
human language in the use of the word, is ethics, heightened, enlight- 
ened, lit up by feeling ; the passage from morality to religion is made 
when to morality is applied emotion ; and the true meaning of religion 
is not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.' Mr. Max 
Miiller has defined religion more simply as the sensus numinis, the sense 
of our dependence upon some thing (or some one) else. * All nations 
join, in some way or other, in the words of the Psalmist : " He hath 
made us, and not we ourselves." ' " — Keary's Outlines of Primitive 
Beliefs, p. 4. 

^ " Religion is a universal fact. It is found among all nations. How- 
ever ruined, alienated, degraded they may be, there exists in all a uni- 
versal instinct, seeking its satisfaction and manifesting itself in religious 
forms and ceremonies. * You may see states,' says Plutarch, * without 
walls, without laws, without coins, without writing ; but a people with- 
out a god, without prayer, without religious exercises and sacrifices, has 
no man seen.' For a consciousness of the existence of God everywhere 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 3O9 

" E'en in savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not." 

In St. Paul's presentation of the status of the pagan 
nations (Rom. I : 19, 20) he says that God hath mani- 
fested unto them the things which may be known con- 
cerning him ; " for the invisible things of him since the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived 
through the things that are made, even his everlasting 
power and divinity.'' Thus they have both the holy 
aspiration and the sufficient response. As the hart 
panteth for the water-brooks, so does the universal 
heart of man pant after God. Everywhere we find 
this thirst for the living God. Nor has he ever or 
anywhere left himself without a witness. All nature 
is an open book of theology, the air is resonant with 
voices of divine invitation ; 

" And as the waxing moon can take 
The tidal waters in her wake, 
And lead them round and round to break 
Obedient to her drawings dim, 

exists, and man cannot think of God without attributing to himself some 
kind of relation toward him." — Luthardt's Fundamental Truths of 
Christianity, p. 147. 

*' Columbus at first indulged in the error that the natives of Hayti 
were destitute of all notions of religion, and he had consequently flat- 
tered himself that it would be the easier to introduce into their minds 
the doctrines of Christianity — not aware that it is more difficult to light 
up the fire of devotion in the cold heart of an atheist than to direct the 
flame to a new object when it is already enkindled. There are few 
beings, however, so destitute of reflection as not to be impressed with 
the conviction of an overruling Deity. A nation of atheists never ex- 
isted." — Irving's Columbus y vi. chap. 10. 



3IO THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

So may the movements of his mind, 
The first great Father of mankind, 
Affect with answering movements blind, 
And draw the souls that breathe by him." 

The false religions are the " movements blind " with 
which the world has answered the " dim drawings " 
of God. It is thus that the nations ^* haply feel after 
him" (Acts 17 : 27). 

II. Truth in all Religions, — We find, therefore, a 
modicum of truth in every one of the religions of the 
globe. It is by no means necessary that in our effort 
to exalt Christianity as the one true religion we should 
characterize all other systems as false i7t toto. The di- 
vineness of the human soul is heard speaking more or 
less distinctly through them all. 

(i) God. — Here is God himself, dimly outlined, per- 
haps, like Michael Angelo's picture of the Almighty 
behind the huge clouds of chaos, nevertheless the ver- 
itable One. There is a profound and blessed truth in 
the words with which the archangel in Paradise Lost 
is represented as addressing Adam on his expulsion 
from the garden: 

" Yet doubt not but in valley and in plain 
God is, as here, and will be found alike 
Present ; and of his presence many a sign 
Still following thee, still compassing thee round 
With goodness and parental love, his face 
Express, and of his steps the track divine." 

We Christians must not arrogate to ourselves all of 
the divine presence and guidance. If I mistake not, 



THE TRUE RELIGION, 3II 

we have discovered in each of the sacred books a sil- 
houette, if nothing more, of the face of God. 

(2) Morals. — We have discovered traces also of " his 
track divine;" that is, the path of righteousness. Each 
of the false religions has its code of moral maxims, not 
a few of which are substantially identical with those of 
the Christian system. Let it be remembered that a moral 
code is the resultant of a belief in God. It is uttered 
forth not by the still small voice of Calvary, but by 
the thunders and trumpet-blasts of Sinai ; it is heard, 
therefore, not merely in Christian lands, but to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. The fundamental prin- 
ciples of virtue are the common heritage of all races. 
It need, then, occasion no surprise when we hear the 
familiar maxims of the moral law proceeding from the 
lips of pagan oracles,^ nor even when we read the 

^ " In communicating his revelation to man, God may have made, 
and certainly did make, use of pre-existing elements, of ideas already 
familiar to those v^^hom he addressed. It may have been that for some 
points of difficulty man had already fashioned true answers, or such at 
least as were not far from the truth. These the revelation would con- 
firm by a declaration of their conformity with truth, a happy guess would 
be turned into certainty, while error would be eliminated and misap- 
prehension corrected. It was not necessaiy that everything should be 
done from the beginning ; we are not to expect to find in a divine rev- 
elation everything entirely new and strange. There may have been, as 
Mr. Buckle says, excellent moral precepts propounded and acted on 
before the introduction of Christianity; was it necessary, therefore, that 
Christianity should ignore and pass them by, or that it should supersede 
everything which had already commended itself to the conscience of 
mankind? Rather would we expect it to acknowledge and embody 
such precepts, adding to them an authority which they had not pre- 
viously possessed. There may, in like manner, have been conceptions 
which, to some extent, interpreted and satisfied the religious need ; it 
was not necessary that these should be discarded, but that they should 



312 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Golden Rule in the annals of Confucius, which were 
written five centuries before the Christian era. 

(3) An Essefttial Christ. — Nor is this all. Alas for 
the pagan world if the whole measure of its truth is 
contained in these dim outlines of a holy God and a 
broken table of law ! But there is something further 
in these false systems of religion which we cannot 
have overlooked — to wit, the suggestion of a Christ — 
dim, indeed, sometimes, as a spectre walking in a 
dream, but still an " essential Christ," one who shall 
somehow deliver the world from the consequences of 
man's ill-doing and usher in a golden age. The word 
of hope addressed by Hermes to Prometheus chained 
to the rock had in it a prophecy of the glorious gospel 
of redemption by vicarious death almost as plain as 
that which glowed on the fire-touched lips of Isaiah : 
** Thy suffering can never end until a god shall appear 
as thy substitute in anguish, ready to descend in thy 
behalf into the midnight realms of Hades and the 
gloomy depths of Tartarus.'' And the fourth Eclogue 
of Virgil, written on the occasion of the birth of Pol- 
lio's son, seems like an inspired welcome to Shiloh : 



*' The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes, 
Renews its finished course ; Saturnian times 
Roll round again ; and mighty years, begun 
From their first orb, in radiant circles run. 

be made Jhe foundation and the means of further enlightenment ; nor, 
as Max Miiller says, should * any doctrine seem the less true or the less 
precious because it was seen not only by Moses or Christ, but likewise 
by Buddha or Laotse.' " — Alexander Stewart, in Catholic Presby- 
terian , i. 6. 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 313 

The base, degenerate, iron offspring ends, 
A golden progeny from heaven descends. — 
See ! laboring nature calls thee to sustain 
The nodding frame of heaven and earth and main. 
See to their base restored earth, seas and air, 
And joyful ages from behind in crowding ranks appear." 

It is not for us to say whether such anticipations of a 
great Deliverer are lingering echoes of the protevangel 
of Eden (Gen. 3 : 15), or the expressions of an intuitive 
conviction that a good God will not leave a sin-stricken 
world to suffer an irremediable doom ; in any case, we 
rejoice to know that even the nations that lie in dark- 
ness and the shadow of death are not wholly Christless. 
They have slender clues of gospel truth, which, were 
they followed, would lead bew^ildered souls out of the 
dark labyrinths into the light. Thus, God is exonerated 
and the nations are without excuse (Rom. i : 20) if, be- 
coming vain in their imaginations, they choose the un- 
broken night rather than the endless day.^ 

III. All the False Religions are Vitally Defective. — 
We have found that all these religions, notwithstand- 
ing their contingent of truth, are vitally defective. As 

^ " We ought to hail with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, 
the enunciation by heathen writers of truths which we might at first 
sight have been disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. 
In Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato, in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus 
Aurelius,we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through - 
clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the 
souls of men in the pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplex- 
ities and dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface 
of silver, some image of what was divine and true ; we hail with the 
great and eloquent Bossuet, Hhe Christianity of nature.^ * The divine 
image in man,' says St. Bernard, * may be burned, but it cannot be 
burnt out.'" — Farrar's Seekers after God, p. 182. 



314 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

James Freeman Clarke says : '' In every instance we can 
touch with our finger the weak or empty side." It is 
true that all nations have a more or less clear concep- 
tion of Deity ; yet, left to themselves, they have, after 
the manner of Confucius, grown weary of gazing into 
nebulous depths, and therefore dispensed with God 
altogether; or, like the Hindus, have enlarged and 
rarefied the dimly-outlined Presence until it has be- 
come an all-pervading Something or Nothing, without 
life or personality ; or else, their foolish hearts being 
darkened, they have changed the glory of the incor- 
ruptible One into the images of men and birds and four- 
footed beasts and creeping things. Thus the heathen, 
themselves being their own witnesses, knowing God, 
have not, in any of their religions, glorified him as 
God. It is true also that not a few of the sound prin- 
ciples of morality are found among them ; but they are 
like the proper remedies on the shelves of a quack- 
salver : here are salutary balms and balsams side by 
side with solutions of toads' gall and powder of ser- 
pents' fangs, and all manner of foolish and deleterious 
nostrums. It were better, mayhap, for the sick to die 
in the course of nature than to be thus drugged with 
mingled truth and error. 

It would be a pleasure, at this point, to feel assured 
that the benighted nations in their extremity are greatly 
helped, possibly delivered, by such of their dreams and 
visions as declare an " essential Christ ;" but, alas ! the 
very blood upon their sacrificial altars becomes a mere 
fetich, the symbol being put for the thing symbolized, 
and the rising smoke of their oblations hides the sun. 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 315 

IV. The False Religions Unfit for General Diffusion, — 
These various systems are, all alike, unfit for general 
diffusion. They are man-made and ethnic.^ They dis- 

^ "Now, we are met at once with the striking and obvious fact that 
most of the religions of the world are evidently religions limited in 
some way to particular races or nations. They are, as we have said, 
ethnic. We use this Greek word rather than its Latin equivalent, gen- 
tile, because gentile, though meaning literally * of or belonging to a 
race,* has acquired a special sense from its New-Testament use as mean- 
ing all who are not Jews. The word * ethnic * remains pure from any 
such secondai-y or acquired meaning, and signifies simply that which 
belongs to a race.^"* — Clarke's Ten Great Religions, p. 15. 

" We find that each race, besides its special moral qualities, seems 
also to have special religious qualities, which cause it to tend toward 
some one kind of religion more than to another kind. These religions 
are the flower of the race ; they come forth from it as its best aroma. 
Thus we see that Brahmanism is confined to that section or race of the 
great Aryan family which has occupied India for more than thirty cen- 
turies. It belongs to the Hindus, to the people taking its name from 
the Indus, by the tributaries of which stream it entered India from the 
north-west. It has never attempted to extend itself beyond that par- 
ticular variety of mankind. Perhaps one hundred and fifty millions 
of men accept it as their faith. It has been held by this race as their 
religion during a period immense in the history of mankind. Its sacred 
books are certainly more than three thousand years old. But during all 
this time it has never communicated itself to any race of men outside 
of the peninsula of India. It is thus seen to be a strictly ethnic relig- 
ion, showing neither the tendency nor the desire to become the religion 
of mankind. 

" The same thing may be said of the religion of Confucius. It be- 
longs to China and the Chinese. It suits their taste and genius. They 
have had it as their state religion for some twenty-three hundred years, 
and it rules the opinions of the rulers of opinion among three hundred 
millions of men. But, out of China, Confucius is only a name. 

" So, too, of the system of Zoroaster. It was for a long period the 
religion of an Aryan tribe who became the ruling people among man- 
kind. The Persians extended themselves through Western Asia and 
conquered many nations, but they never communicated their religion. 



3l6 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

tinctly bear the image of their creators, and cannot 
therefore — so long as race-diversities and antagonisms 
exist — overspread the earth. The intense spirituahty 
of Brahmanism, for instance, which so highly com- 
mends it to the transcendental Hindus, makes it repel- 
lent for ever to those northern tribes who dwell where 
the elements are in perpetual strife. The matter-of-fact 
philosophy of Confucius would have produced among 
the vivacious and romantic Greeks an insufferable weari- 
ness. Thus, the very strength of the ethnic systems de- 
bars them from catholic conquest. The religion which 
is to become universal must commend itself to the uni- 
versal heart and conscience; to that end its Author 
must be thoroughly familiar with Jew and Greek, bar- 
barian, Scythian, bond and free. There is only One 
such — namely, the God and Father of us all. 

" The true religion, sprung from God above, 
Is — must be — like her fountain, 



It was strictly a national or ethnic religion, belonging only to the 
Iranians and their descendants, the Parsees. 

" In like manner, it may be said that the religions of Egypt, of Greece, 
of Scandinavia, of the Jews, of Islam, and of Buddhism, are ethnic 
religions. Those of Egypt and Scandinavia are strictly so. It is said, 
to be sure, that the Greeks borrowed the names of their gods from 
Egypt, but the gods themselves were entirely different ones. It is also 
true that some of the gods of the Romans were borrowed from the 
Greeks, but their life was left behind. They merely represented by rote 
the Greek mythology, having no power to invent one for themselves. 
But the Greek religion they never received. For instead of its fair 
humanities the Roman gods were only servants of the state — a higher 
kind of consuls, tribunes and lictors. The real Olympus of Rome was 
the Senate Chamber on the Capitoline Hill." — Clarke's Ten Great 
Religions^ p. i6. 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 31/ 

Embracing all things with a tender love, 
Full of good-will and meek expectancy ; 

Full of true justice and sure verity 

In heart and voice ; free, large, even infinite ; 

Not wedged in strait particularity. 

But grasping all in her vast, active spirit." 

V. Three Necessary Marks of the True Religion, — This 
true religion must have three distinguishing marks. 

1. Pleroma^ by which is meant the possession of all 
excellences. The universal religion, which is to crowd 
out Islam and Buddhism with all other competitors, 
must obviously so commend itself to the Moslem and 
Buddhist as that they shall miss none of the beneficent 
features of their former faiths. It must therefore be 
teres atque rotiindus} a compend and summary of all 
the excellences of all the religious systems of the 
world. 

2. Faiiltlessness, — In each of the man-made systems 
we detect points of weakness, theological or ethical 
flaws. There must be an utter freedom from these in 
the religion which is to bind the nations all together 
and back to God. 

3. Power to Save. — It is not enough that a religion 
should, like Brahmanism, transport the mind from 
earthly to unearthly realms ; not enough that it should, 
like Buddhism, bring back the mind from unprofitable 
dreams to common tasks and duties ; nor yet enough 

1 ** The question emerges at this point : * Is Christianity also one- 
sided, or does it contain in itself all these truths ?' Is it teres atqiie 
rotundusy so as to be able to meet every natural religion with a kindred 
truth, and thus to supply the defects of each from its own fullness ? If 
it can be shown to possess this amplitude, it at once is placed by itself 
in an order of its own." — Ten Great Religions^ p. 24. 



3l8 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

that, like the inspiriting mytholog}^ of the Norseman, 
it should perpetually broaden the horizons of our free- 
dom. The religion of the Greeks led them into porches 
of philosophy and the vast galleries of the liberal arts, 
while that of the Egyptians brought them, reverently 
hoodwinked, into interminable labyrinths of spiritual 
mystery. The philosophy of Confucius maps out an 
earthly kingdom abiding in the sunshine of perpetual 
peace, while Islam unsheaths the sword to propagate 
the iron rule of an infinite sovereign whose figure over- 
shadows all. Thus each has its own work. Each per- 
formed its ofifice in presenting a partial outline of many- 
sided truth, a fragmentary code of morals, or a single 
feature — perchance grim and distorted — of an infinite 
and every way glorious God. The true religion, how- 
ever, must accomplish all that is performed by all of 
these and something more — ay, vastly more. It must 
show itself to be the power of God unto salvation. 
Whatever its other achievements, this must be its chef 
(Tceuvre : it must furnish a complete and satisfactory an- 
swer to the question, '' What shall I do that I may have 
eternal life ?" It must show itself able to deliver human 
souls from the shame, bondage and penalty of sin. 

VI. CJiristianity has these Marks. — It is claimed that 
the foregoing conditions are fully met in the religion 
of Jesus Christ. If that claim be established, it stands 
that Christianity is of divine origin and must ultimately 
become the religion of the whole earth. The follow^- 
ing diagram, showing the leading excellences and de- 
fects of the false systems, will abridge our labor at this 
point : 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 



319 



7. The Fetich. 
Good Features. 
Central Thought : Man not his own 

Master. 
A Belief in the Unseen. 



Bad Features. 
Chance, as distinguished from Prov- 
idence. 
Abject Superstition. 



//. The Religion of Egypt. 



Central Thought: Reverence for 

Life. 
Immortality : The Ka^ or Soul. 
The Maat, or Moral Code. 

///. Zoroastrianism. 



Zoolatry, or worship of life. 
Mystery, a religio bifrons. 



Central Thought : Conflict. 
The Four Laws : Piety, Purity, Ve- 
racity, Industry. 



Dualism, the devil coequal with 

God. 
Hopelessness. 



IV. Brahinanism. 



Diaus-Pitar, " Our Father in Heav- 
en." 
Spirituality. 



Central Thought : Caste. 
Spiritual Pride. 
Pantheism. 
Transmigration. 
No Personal Responsibility. 
V. Buddhism. 



Central Thought : Self-culture. 
The Noble Eightfold Path: 

1. Right Belief. 

2. Right Feelings. 

3. Right Speech. 

4. Right Actions. 

5. Right Means of Livelihood. 

6. Right Endeavor. 

7. Right Memory. 

8. Right Meditation. 

VI. The Religion of Greece. 



Karma; or. The Law of Conse- 
quences. 

Nirvana; or. Extinction of the 
Soul. 

Selfishness. 

Sadness. 



Ceutral Thought : God in Nature, 
The Dignity of Man. 
Wisdom the Principal Thing. 



The AlFadir. 
Central Thought : Courage. 
Love of Freedom, 
Immortality, Heimgang, 



A Pantheon of Humanized and Im- 
moral Gods. 
Immorality. 
Skepticism. 
VII. Norse Mythology. 

Nature-worship. 

A Sordid View of the Future Life. 



320 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



VIII. Confucianism. 



Bad Features. 
Practical Atheism. 
No Good Cheer. 
No Ambition. 
No Progress. 



Good Features. 
Central Thought: The Ideal King- 
dom. 
Filial Piety. 
Patriotism. 
The Five Cardinal Virtues : 

Benevolence, Duty, Decorum, 
Knowledge, Faith. 
Conservatism. 

IX. Islam. 
" The Eternal Truth," one God. " The Eternal Lie," Mohammed is 

the Prophet of God. 
Unitarianism. 
Central Thought : Kismet, 
Formalism : The Five Pillars of 
Duty: 

1. Repeating the Creed. 

2. Observing the Stated Sea- 
sons of Prayer. 

3. Keeping the Fast of Ram- 
adan. 

4. Performing the Legal Alms. 

5. Making the Pilgrimage to 
Mecca. 

The Sword. 

Slavery. 

Degradation of Woman. 

It appears from this diagram that all the good feat- 
ures of the false systems are to be found in Chris- 
tianity, and of the bad features not one ; that is to say, 
Christianity has both pleroma^ and faultlessness. One 

^ " The word pleroma (rclypD^a) in the New Testament means that 
which fills up — fullness, fulfilling, filling full. The verb * to fulfill ' 
carries the same significance. To ' fulfill that which was spoken by the 
prophets ^ means to fill it full of meaning and truth. Jesus came, not 
to destroy the law, but to fulfill it ; that is, to carry it out farther. He 
teaches that love fulfills the law, that the Church is the fullness of Christ, 
that Christ fills all things full of himself, and that in him dwells all the 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 32 1 

thing more remains to be shown in order to establish 
its claim to be the absolute religion ^ — namely, that it 
offers a satisfactory plan of deliverance from sin. 

fullness of the Godhead bodily. One great distinction between Chris- 
tianity and all other religions is in this pleroma, or fullness of life which 
it possesses, and which, to all appearance, came from the life of Jesus." 
— Ten Great Religions ^ p. 504. 

" Christianity differs from all other religions (on the side of truth) in 
this, that it is a pleroma, or fullness of knowledge. It does not differ 
by teaching what has never been said or thought before. Perhaps the 
substance of most of the statements of Jesus may be found scattered 
through the ten religions of the world, some here and some there. Jesus 
claims no monopoly of the truth. He says, * My doctrine is not mine, 
but His who sent me.' But he does call himself * the Light of the world,' 
and says that, though he does not come to destroy either the law or the 
prophets, he comes to fulfill them in something higher. His work is to 
fulfill all religions with something higher, broader and deeper than 
what they have — accepting their truth, supplying their deficiencies." — 
Ibid.^ p. 492. 

^ " And what, then, is Christianity ? It is a world of thoughts which 
have been working and fermenting in the minds of men up to the present 
hour ; it is an all-affecting change in our mode of thought and observa- 
tion; it is a transformation of our entire social system; it is a renewal 
of our inner life ; in short, it is a world of effects which are matters of 
daily experience. Wherever we may be and wherever we may go we 
encounter this new world of Christianity, even when we do not recog- 
nize it, even when we ignore or deny it. But, above all, Christianity is 
religion. The Christian religion is the source from which that stream 
of blessings flows of which even they who oppose or despise the Chris- 
tian faith partake. As religion, however, it is connected with all those 
religions which have preceded it, and that not merely as one of them, 
but as their truth, their aim — as simply religion. Christianity is the 
absolute religion, the only true and intrinsically valid religion. Such 
is the pretension with which it entered the world and which it con- 
stantly maintains. This may, perhaps, be called exclusivencss and in- 
tolerance, but it is the intolerance of truth. As soon as truth concedes 
the possibility of her opposite being also true, she denies herself. As 
soon as Christianity ceases to declare herself to be the only true religion 
she annihilates her power and denies her- right to exist, for she denies 
21 



322 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Let US observe how the false rehgions answer the 
great question, 

" What shall I Do to be Saved T 

1. Fetichism No answer. 

2. The Religion of Egypt.. .Observe the Alaat, or moral code. 

3. Zoroastrianism Repeat the Patet. 

4. Brahmanism... Be absorbed in Brahm. 

5. Buddhism Be sublimely indifferent to everything. 

6. The Religion of Greece ..No answer. 

7. Norse Mythology Fight a good fight (right or wrong). 

8. Confucianism Be a good citizen of the kingdom of 

China. 

9. Islam Do your duty ; that is, stand by the Five 

Pillars. 

With these let us contrast the answer of Christianity 
as given in its great doctrine of justification by faith. 
It is this : Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved — saved from the defilement, the bond- 
age and the penalty of sin. This is Christianity's mas- 
terstroke ; and at this point it conclusively and finally 
demonstrates its superiority over all. " I am not 
ashamed,'* said the great cosmopolitan apostle — " I 
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth ; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek " 
(Rom. I : 16). 

The Cardinal Truths of Chnstianity. — Observe, now, 
the cardinal truths of the Christian religion, which may 
be briefly considered under three heads : 

her necessity. The old world concluded with the question, What is 
truth? The new world began with the saying of Christ, *I am the 
Truth.' And this saying is the confession of Christian faith." — LuTH* 
ARDT's Saving Truths of Chrisiiaitity, p. 20. 



THE TRUE RELIGION, 323 

(i) As to God. — He is declared to be " a spirit, infinite, 
eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, 
holiness, justice, goodness and truth." Dr. Robert 
Flint says : " Christianity, alone of religions, gives a 
clear, self-consistent, adequate view of God. It pre- 
sents him as the one God, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, 
omniscient ; as perfect in wisdom, in righteousness, in 
holiness; and yet as merciful, gracious, full of good- 
ness and love ; a true Father in his feelings and actings 
toward men ; the God and Father of Jesus Christ, in 
whose character and sacrifice his moral glory has found 
the highest revelation of its purity and beauty, its at- 
tractiveness and tenderness." 

(2) As to Ma?i. — He is set forth as the crowning work 
and masterpiece of the divine creation ; he was made 
in the image and after the likeness of the infinite One : 
put to the test, which was necessary for his confirma- 
tion in virtue, he ignominiously fell from his high estate 
and became alienated from God ; but he was not left 
without hope, for no sooner had he fallen than the 
possibility of a restoration was placed before him. 
*' Christianity, alone of religions," says Dr. Flint, " ad- 
dresses itself to man as he really is and in the whole 
extent of his being, overlooking no weakness, cloaking 
no sin, making no false concessions, yet denying no 
legitimate supports, and appealing in due order and 
degree to faith, reason, affection and will." 

(3) As to the Relations of Man ivitli God. — Restora- 
tion is brought about through the vicarious suffering of 
a Mediator, the Theanthropos, who, being man that he 
may be able to suffer, and God that he may suffer 



324 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

enough, bears the world's sins in his own body on the 
tree. The condition affixed to the offer of salvation 
through this great atonement is faith in Christ crucified. 
He that believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be 
saved. ** Christianity, alone of religions," again says 
Dr. Flint, " discloses and promises to man a complete 
communion with God. It shows the perfect union of 
the divine and human in the person and life of its 
Founder. It offers, on the basis and surety of a di- 
vinely-accomplished and divinely-accepted atonement, 
full reconciliation with God to every one who will re- 
pent and turn from his sins." ^ 

Christian Morals. — The resultant of this faith in 
Christ crucified is a godly life. The moral code of 
Christianity, like its plan of salvation, is adapted to all 
classes of people in all possible relations to the very 
end of time. It is calculated to build up a happy 

^ "Whether we look at the character of Christ in its unapproach- 
able elevation of purity and loveliness, or at the manifestation of God's 
love in his incarnation and atoning death ; whether we look at the in- 
fluence which these have exerted in moulding the world's history 
through eighteen centuries, or at the power they have shown themselves 
to possess of sustaining and guiding the believer's life and of ministering 
to his comfort and peace, — we feel we are in the presence of that which 
is unique because it is alone divine. Christianity is the only system 
which has dared to probe to the bottom of the wound of which hu- 
manity is so sadly conscious, because it alone was provided with a per- 
fect remedy. It can present the ideal at which men should aim with- 
out detraction, because it alone can hold out a prospect of its realiza- 
tion. It can exhibit the extent to which men fall short of this ideal in 
all its awfulness, because it alone bridges the fatal gulf. In other re- 
ligions we have man seeking God — feeling after him if haply he might 
find him : here only is God seeking man in the fullness and freeness of 
redeeming love." — Alexander Stewart. 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 325 

home, a pure society and a just government. It en- 
larges the heart of a man, giving him a commission 
of love to the antipodes, and thus fits him for a place 
in the universal neighborhood, the kingdom of God. 

The Central Truth of Christianity. — The central truth 
of the Christian rehgion is Jesus Christ.^ He is first, 
midst, last. He is all and in all. For other foundation 
can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ 
(i Cor. 3:11). 

(i) Christ as the Manifestation of God. — He is repre- 
sented as the manifestation of God. The Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his 
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), 
full of grace and truth (John i : 14). For in him dwell- 

^ " But if I say Christianity, I thereby say Jesus Christ. Christianity 
appeared in the world, not as a system of philosophy, not as a code of 
morality, but as an actual fact — the fact of the person Christ Jesus. 
All depends on him. With him Christianity stands or falls. It cannot 
be separated from him. It was not his precepts, but his person and his 
testimony concerning himself, which brought about the crisis in Israel. 
He himself made his whole cause depend upon his person. We can- 
not separate it from him. Rationalism has attempted to separate Chris- 
tianity from Christ, and to reduce it to a mere morality. But experience 
has proved the attempt impossible. Jesus Christ does not bear the same 
relation to Christianity as Mohammed does to Mohammedanism, or as 
any other founder of a religion to the religion he has founded ; but he 
is himself Christianity. To speak of Christianity is to speak not of 
doctrines and precepts, but of Jesus Christ. Christianity is indeed a 
summaiy of truths, a new doctrine, a philosophy if you will, a new 
view of the world, a new explanation of history, a new mode of wor- 
ship, a new morality, a new rule of life, etc. It is all these, because it 
is a fact universal in its nature. But all these depend upon the person 
of Jesus Christ, are given with him and included in him — stand and 
fall with him." — Lutiiardt's Fundamental Truths of Christianity^ 
p. 256. 



326 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

eth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2 : 9). 
In Jesus Christ all the divine attributes are brought 
within our human ken. *' God's general revelation of 
himself is by fixed laws of order which know no pity, 
which show no forgiveness, which are indifferent to the 
interests of individuals, which conceal the divine char- 
acter in some respects while they reveal it in others. 
God's special revelation of himself by intervening 
among these laws in miraculous acts and inspired 
words brings him nearer to individual hearts, and yet 
it leaves him far away ; for, after all, but signs and 
sounds have been given, not himself; he is himself 
still shrouded in darkness, still hidden where no man 
can approach him. Can he come yet nearer man, that 
man may draw closer to him ? Christianity answers, 
and its answer is Christ, — the person, the character and 
the work of Christ." ^ 

(2) CImst as the Sin-bearer, — But Christ is not merely 
the manifestation of God ; he is set forth also as the sin- 
bearer, and as such the Saviour of the world. In vain 
had guilty men, groaning under the burden of their 
guilt, looked elsewhere for deliverance ; in vain had 
they bowed before their idols and sought counsel at 
their oracles ; the gods were dumb, the oracles were 
silent, there was no voice nor answer nor any that re- 

1 " Christianity fully recognizes the whole revelation of God in man, 
and represents the completion of the revelation of God as made through 
a perfect man. The religion of Greece tended to form artists, and that 
of Scandinavia, warriors ; Brahmanism is the religion of priests, and 
Buddhism of ascetics; but Christianity aims at the production of men, 
true and complete men, sons of God, perfect as the Father in heaven 
is perfect." — Dr. Robert Flint, in Faiths of the World, p. 358. 



THE TRUE RELIGION, 327 

garded. " At the end of the long ascent of natural de- 
velopment we find ourselves only on a Babel tower, 
looking heavenward, but with no wings to mount 
Here the dreams of optimists and the sanguine hopes 
of reformers have halted and died. That which the 
human heart cannot but long for, and catch gleams 
of in the mute prophecies of nature, yet cannot realize 
of itself, is at last fulfilled in the redemption of Christ. 
From this shadowy tabernacle of earth and sky, where 
the inexorable debt of nature is paid with ' blood of 
goats and calves,' ' by his own blood he has entered 
once into the holy place, having obtained eternal re- 
demption for us.' " ^ 

(3) Christ as the Ideal Man. — Still further, Christ is 
set forth as the Exemplar of right living. It is not 
enough that in him we should behold God, nor that 
through him we should have our sins forgiven : we 
must have placed before us somewhere an illustration 
of perfect character, that we may pattern our lives after 
it. In Christ we mark the perfect Man, and the con- 
stant aspiration of the true Christian is that he may 
be more like him.^ *' It has been reserved," says 

^ The Old Bible and the New Science. 

2 " Christianity was not only a doctrine, but a life. Oh, let us strive 
to imitate that life ! Take it with you, my young brethren, into the dust 
and glare of the busy world; amid the struggles and duties of this 
place of learning now, amid the temptations of great cities and eager 
lives hereafter, into the country parsonage and the lawyer's chambers, 
the merchant's counting-house and the soldier's tent. Take but this 
with you, and, pure, happy, noble, confident, you may smile hereafter 
when men tell you that Christianity is dead. Do this, and it shall never 
die; it shall grow younger with years; it shall deepen in faith and 
wisdom, in dominion and power, in purity and peace ; the dew of its 



328 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Lecky, '' for Christianity to present the world an ideal 
character which, through all the changes of eighteen 
centuries, has filled the hearts of men with an impas- 
sioned love ; has shown itself capable of acting on all 
ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has not 
only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the highest 
incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an 
influence that it may be truly said that the simple record 
of three short years of active life has done more to 
regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisi- 
tions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moral- 
ists. It has indeed been the wellspring of whatever is 
best and purest in the Christian life." ^ 

birth shall be as the womb of the morning, and all they who believe and 
live thereby shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars 
for ever and ever." — Canon Farrar to Shidents of Cambridge University . 
^ It would be profitable to note the failures of the false religions and 
philosophies in their endeavor to picture the ideal Man. Canon Farrar 
says : *' The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral phoenix, impassible and 
repulsive. He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in ad- 
versity, calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he 
alone knows how to die ; he is the master of the world, because he is 
master of himself and the equal of God ; he looks down upon every- 
thing with sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of hu- 
manity and smiling with inviting loftiness at all our hopes and all our 
fears. But in anothev sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster 
Seneca presents us not the proud athlete who challenges the universe 
and is invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, 
but a hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender indeed, but 
still without desires, without passions, without needs — who can feel no 
pity because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm. Well 
might the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical per- 
fections, ' It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. But, 
O maxims truly pompous ! O affected insensibility ! O false and imag- 
inaiy wisdom, which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and gen- 
erous because it is puffed up !' " 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 329 

Just here we observe the vital difference between 
Christianity viewed as a moral system and all the other 
religions of the earth. The latter furnish more or less 
elaborate codes of maxims and precepts, but the former, 
doing all this, and doing it more satisfactorily, goes 
farther still and furnishes an illustration of its moral 
code in the person of a perfect Man.^ The best morality 
of paganism is but a mummied body of maxims, frag- 
rant of balms and spices, but without warmth or power ; 
while that of Christianity, being quickened by divine 
inspiration, is as a living soul. The Golden Rule of 
Jesus differs from the same precept in its pagan form 
as Aaron's budded rod from a dry wisp of papyrus. 
Our Master speaks in Christian ethics as one having 
authority; and, though other teachers have let fall in 
fragmentary utterances not a few of the truths enun- 
ciated in his gospel, the world is still constrained to 
admit that man never spake like this Man. The 
superiority of the Christian system of morals to all 
others may be clearly perceived in the contrasted 
characters of the Christian and non-Christian nations. 

Grapes are gathered from vines, and thistles from 
the thistle-bush. The religion of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ is the only religion that has ever produced 

^ " Yes, the life of Christ is indeed an example, a vTroypafifLov^ over 
which the loveliest of saints' lives have been but faintly traced ; a glory 
of which all that is bright among Christians has been but * a pale image 
and faint reflection.' Beautiful indeed has been the life of the saints 
of God, and one has been full of charity, and one of purity, and one 
of zeal ; but this life is not a type of any one excellence, but a radia- 
tion of them all — not virtuous, but Virtue; not truthfulness, but Truth.'' 
— Farrar. 



330 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

a thoroughly enlightened people or a really holy 
life.^ 

Christia7iity the True Religion. — We arrive thus at the 
conclusion that Christianity, alone of religions, is of 
divine origin, and that, as such, it must supplant all 
others and possess the earth.^ The Seed of woman 
named in the protevangel, though bruised on Golgotha 
in his struggle with Error, shall yet crush the life out 
of it. The seed of Abraham, multiplied as the stars 
of heaven, shall bless all the nations of the earth (Gal. 
3:16). The caravans of Midian and Ephah, the fleets 
of Tarshish, the royal armies of the Gentiles, shall bring 



1 *' The morality of paganism," says Farrar, " was, by its own con- 
fession, insufficient. It was tentative where Christianity is authorita- 
tive; it was dim and partial where Christianity is bright and complete; 
it was inadequate to rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind where 
Christianity came with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only 
a rule where Christianity supplies a principle. And even where its 
teachings were absolutely coincident with those of Scripture it failed to 
ratify them with a sufficient sanction ; it failed to announce them with 
the same powerful and contagious ardor ; it failed to furnish an abso- 
lutely faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire 
them with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a pow- 
erful comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered 
in the aim after a consistent and holy life." 

2 *' Other religions are defective and erroneous, ours is perfect and 
entire ; their systems were esoteric, ours is universal ; theirs temporary 
and for the few, ours eternal and for the race; a handful read the phi- 
losophers, myriads would die for Christ ; they in their popularity could 
barely found a school, Christ from his cross rules the world; they could 
rot even conceive the ideas of a society without falling into miserable 
error, Christ established an eternal and glorious kingdom, whose theory 
for all, whose history in the world, prove it to be indeed what it was 
from the first proclaimed to be — the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom 
of God." — Farrar's Witness of Histoiy to Christy p. 148. 



THE TRUE RELIGION. 33 1 

gold and incense and shall show forth the praises of 
the Christ of God. 

The line of argument pursued in this brief series of 
essays has been kept strictly within the limits of Com- 
parative Religion : it might be vastly strengthened, 
were this within our province, by a consideration of 
the part which Christianity has taken in the enlight- 
enment and uplifting of the nations. We should find 
it no difficult matter to present an imposing array of 
gesta Christi^ for the altars of the gospel are hung — 
like the fountain-shrine of Lourdes — with crutches and 
disused bandages, the eloquent testimony of such as 
believe themselves to have been healed by its medicinal 
virtue ; and its pillars — like those of the ancient temple 
— are adorned with the golden shields of many who, 
drinking of its cool waters on the march, have been 
made strong out of their weakness and enabled to put 
to flight the armies of the aliens. 

The path of the gospel in history is marked on either 
side with monuments of loving-kindness. It has re- 
lieved the poor and suffering, enlightened the ignorant 
and helped the downtrodden to their feet. It is now 
nearly nineteen hundred years since Jesus the Christ 
came from heaven to save our ruined race. We look 
back over those centuries with wonder and gratitude, for 
one by one the nations have arrayed themselves under 
the red-cross banner until Antichrist to-day rules solely 
in the lands that lie in darkness and the shadow of death.^ 

^ " When we think of these moral characteristics, and see wliat the Chris- 
tian religion has done for the world, see the commentaiy which eighteen 
centuries of civilization have written upon the Gospels, see what Europe 



332 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

We are therefore in a position to say, '' As for God, his 
way is perfect ; the word of the Lord is tried ; he is a 
buckler to all them that trust in him " (2 Sam. 22 : 31). 
We rejoice in our confident assurance that the light 
of this glorious gospel of the blessed God, which has 
been shining with an ever-increasing radiance since it 
first arose above Bethlehem, shall continue to shine 
brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Lift up 
your eyes, O believer, and mark the innumerable starry 
host : even so shall be the fruit of the travail of Em- 
manuel's soul. 

*' For him shall endless prayer be made, 
And princes throng to crown his head ; 
His name, like sweet perfume, shall rise 
\Yith eveiy morning sacrifice. 

" Let eveiy creature rise and bring 
Peculiar honors to our King, 
Angels descend with songs again. 
And earth repeat the loud Anient 

and America are to-day, and then turn back to Judea, to that haughty, 
bigoted, exclusive, illiterate, despised race, and see where the religion 
was cradled, we cannot but think that it was providential in its birth and 
beneficence. Shakespeare and Newton towered above the average level 
of society in their time, like Teneriffe above the sea. But when we 
think of this Jewish boy rising up at the feet of the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees, with the religions of the Ganges on the one hand and that of 
Olympus on the other, and think what it was he said and wrought and 
contributed to the world, he towers so high above Shakespeare and 
Newton that the distance between these and the average level of life 
in their day, in the comparison, becomes a mere ripple on the surface 
of the world." — F7'07?i an Address by Wendell Phillips. 

THE END. 









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A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVA1 

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